


IA's Original Short Story Collection

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Animal Bride, Ballet, F/F, Fairies, Fairy Tale Style, Fantasy, Fluff, Growing Up Together, Knights and Princesses, Mermaids, One Shot Collection, Post-Apocalypse, Science Fiction, Slice of Life, Witches, gay ballerina's, some violence in story 3
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-01-05 01:36:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 84,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12180372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: 1. Under the shadow of bleeding en pointe feet and Minnesota winters, it’s a love story about ballerina's2. A lagoon mermaid and deep sea mermaid encounter one another3. A fungus fairy struggles to find her way in the world as something dark stirs4. A girl on a floating continent communicates with a girl on the ground via lanterns5. A princess is cursed to sprout flowers from her skin when kissed, a knight tries to reverse it6. A cursed witch familiar falls in love with the next door neighbor gardener girl7. Slice of life about the challenges of flirting and life when you're gay8. Post-apocalypse meeting of a woman from a sanctuary and a woman in the swamp9. A young woman starts talking to the night sky10. A She-Wolf claims a new bride each year, this year's bride is different than the last ones





	1. En Pointe

**Author's Note:**

> hey, this is where I'm gonna collect my original short stories, enjoy

_En Pointe_

I don’t know why I was chosen to be the sugar plum fairy instead of Celeste Renoir.

My brother said it was because I was the tallest girl in the class, I said it was because I could almost do a pirouette properly (probably).

He said it was still just because I didn’t need a step stool to do the pas de deux with Roy Calvin. I called him stupid since he was ten and I was twelve and you can call your younger brother stupid at those very close ages.

He retorted that it was dumb of them since they would have to spend half their makeup budget buying concealer for my freckles.

I threw q-tips at him until the floor was littered with a fluffy massacre and we accidently bothered the cat into leaving, no one did anything to properly stop us.

I asked about being the sugar plum fairy the next day, if it was true, Ms. Smith reinforced that yes, I had been chosen. Celeste didn’t say hi to me that morning.

Celeste Renoir had a very French name and a very French family that came over when she was around nine. I didn’t exactly know what that meant, sure, I understood that other places existed and people lived their lives on television in cities far away from me, but I hadn’t met them. I hadn’t been there.

I had never met anyone outside of the outskirts of St. Cloud Minnesota and most my friends were just cousins of mine by different names. She was French even though Carly Thompson pointed out her mom was Chinese, Tina’s mom snapped at her to not point out things like that.

Paisley, who was named after the plant and her great aunt, said she should be the sugar plum fairy since she was almost already thirteen, French, and had already tried en pointe.

Secretly I agreed with her, but they had already bought the concealer and I was still the tallest girl in the class and could almost do a pirouette, I wasn’t backing out now.

Celeste still didn’t say hi to me and I didn’t say that I felt sick thinking about doing the pique turn in front of two dozen faces who were going to clap at me no matter what. Pity claps were still annoying.

I got ready to begin the performance the week before winter break, half the city was snowed in by that point, but that didn’t dissuade anyone from showing up. They arrived on a snowy Thursday night for a severely watered-down version of the nutcracker for Ms. Smith’s ‘11-13 year old ballet class.’

I found myself gasping weakly behind the curtains, my legs were already cramping and I didn’t know why I kept thinking about the lights accidentally blinding me.

I think about the spins and going through the motions of the pas de deux I would do with Roy Calvin, even if he was also almost 5’6 and had only a slight gap in his teeth. I didn’t really want to do this.

The 7-11-year olds were almost done with their Lion King ballet performance when I felt a soft tap on my shoulder.

I turn my face slightly and come face to face with the pouting features of Celeste Renoir, she wasn’t smiling. They say she only smiles for performances, but that might have been one of those things my mom calls a ‘mean stage rumor.’

Celeste met my eyes sharply and lifts her chin, “breath.” I nod because there wasn’t really anything else to do, she does a little motion for me to turn around, I turn. “You’re bow is almost undone.”  
  
She sounded a little stiff, only faintly ‘foreign’ but still had the air of someone who wasn’t from St. Cloud and maybe had never really been there all along.

She undoes the bow holding my dress up and carefully re-ties it with swift handiwork.

“Thanks,” I stutter as she clenches the knot and pulls down the end of my skirt.

She turns me back around, “no big deal.” She sniffs, “deepen your plie this time.”  
  
“Right.” I nod and like her a little bit less but she is sweeping her dark bangs out of her eyes and examines me.

Celeste snaps in front of my face, “and look at me when you get nervous during your solo.”  
  
I look back at her and then the corner of the room, I give a weak smile, “so I can see someone doing it right?” I tried to joke, “honestly, Celeste…”  
  
She gives a faint smile back, “precisely,” she turns me around to face the stage as the announced the 11-13-year olds. “That and I won’t bullshit you with how you’re doing either.”  
  
I inhaled sharply, she just said bullshit in public, I look around frantically for an adult. But she was almost thirteen after all and no one was there.

I smile, a real smile, over my shoulder at her, “does that help?”  
  
She pushes me forward, “Sure.” She sniffs, “If you’re bad.”

I turn my face ahead again and roll my eyes at her, “a charmer I see.” I say in the way my dad says to cars that cut him off in traffic.

She snorts and I walk onto the stage to take my position. I look into the spotlight and try to be everything they want me to: tall and like I wasn’t weighed down by a half a drug-stores worth of foundation.

I smile like my underwear wasn’t riding up and only end up looking at Celeste three times when I stumble. She’s smiling at me this time, a steady look in her brown eyes and I know she isn’t bullshiting me, even with that smile. I was good enough for her to grin at me afterward too, so that was something.

———- 

I ran into Celeste the next winter.

I was still in ballet but 8th grade was a little more important and I only went through the motions of every plie at that point. To be fair, I took ballet in the first place because my mom had two rules: play an instrument and a do a sport until you’re eighteen. No exceptions.

All five of my siblings had to, it would apparently make us ‘well-rounded’ and ‘developed.’ I played the flute and did ballet because I didn’t like sports that involved running or instruments that were too heavy.

My little brother, Ian, who was only around a year younger than me, said that that was boring and I was going to be just as boring as everyone else. I still got to call him stupid at that point.

I was in intermediate classes but Celeste was rising to the next level entirely, she was welcomed into en pointe with open arms and I watched her at extra-hours doing one spin after the next. She didn’t look like a classic ballerina then, but somewhere toward that. Sweat formed on her forehead and a loose sweatshirt hung over her thick tights. To be fair, she mostly looked like an angry fourteen-year-old.

But weren’t we all, that’s the year I started to clip my nails down to the beds and grind my teeth at night. I was fourteen and trying to be anything else but a pimply caricature of myself, but so was everyone else.

We were young and raw and Minnesota decided to be very Minnesota in the spring that year.

It was spring, spring in the way mob bosses are your ‘friend’ and they were still going to threaten you after you pay your dues.

It hit like a heavyweight wrestler, a pile drive of snow right into the center of town and all the surrounding areas, foot upon foot of person-crushing white.

I watched the snow fall for two days straight, perched beside my window and feeling a little too romantic for someone still in SpongeBob pajama pants and unsuccessfully attempting to feel what someone like Emily Dickens might have felt. I was cutting my nails down to the bed and terribly trying to feel what dead people felt when they looked at the exact same things I did.

My mom always said people are a lot more like you than you think, the same air, the same problems, the same toothache when they ate ice cream too fast. I really wanted to feel what Emily Dickens felt, I’m sure she had answers and something smart to say about the world.

I just sat by my window and tunelessly hummed the rhythm of my next flute recital piece instead of actually practicing.

I went to sleep on a Tuesday night and the whole world was nothing but snow and peeling yourself out of bed with two comforters on in the morning.

I was yawning and rubbing my eyes when I did the time old ritual of huddling in front of the tv to watch the news with my other siblings. The feeling of when a news anchor lady announces your school is canceled is like nothing else in the world. Of course, it was not that day, that morning I found out it was just postponed. I wished I lived in Florida for a moment, I heard a snowflake there meant you didn’t have to go to class for a week.

I complained for at least ten minutes before my mom asked ‘would Jesus complain like this?’ She was smiling when she said it, Jesus was her personal friend as far as I understood, but it was more of a running joke than a serious ‘be a little more holy, Rebecca.’ It was more ‘be a little more quiet dear.’

My mom was like that, she said some things so she wouldn’t have to say other ones in different words.

I didn’t completely understand her, it’s funny, to have an entire mother you’ve known your whole life and still wonder what she was actually thinking. Whether she said MASH was her favorite show because she liked it or because everyone else liked it, whether she liked all that egg salad we ate or actually thought Ian would ever be a minister.

Things like that, but I didn’t understand a lot at that point.

I did shut up for her then, I went to put on my long underwear and boots that lived through Minnesota winters, boots that had been to war my youngest sister joked.

I was trying to finish my earth science homework when my father came barging into the kitchen that morning, ‘choochoo!’ He cries and I sit upright in my chair.

“No!” I cry happily and my father’s eyes were already sparkling.

“You bet your bottom dollar kit-kat.” My father nicknamed all his kids after his favorite candy-bars.

“No, no, it’s my turn!” Ian was almost asleep in his cereal, but bolted upright at the first ‘choo.’

I was already on my feet, “Molly went last time and I already have my coat on!” I did, at that very least, have my coat on.

“This is boy sexism!” My brother called because he was learning words like that on reddit (my parents were trying to limit his access). “Phoebe, Molly, and now you! It’s a boys turn.”

My father shrugged, “next time then tootsie roll.” My father gave a little salute, “she already has her jacket on.”

He groans and I stick my tongue out at him.

My father regularly borrowed a snowplow from our neighbors who didn’t have kids and were old enough to save up for a working snow plow and not be able to use it.

My father was the type of man who enjoyed digging people out of snow banks when storms came a knocking. One of my uncles called it a ‘complex’ but my mom retorted that being snowed in just sometimes makes everyone nicer at some point.

She gave him The Look that said ‘you’re from Florida’ and he didn’t respond out loud.

I ran out the door and take the two snowbanks in stride to jump in the passenger’s seat, I was still shivering in the unheated air but I babbled about getting my learner’s permit soon. I would drive the snowplow one year.

My father chuckled and said I should learn to control a headache first before a vehicle, I got a lot of headaches from the grinding.

I sniffed at him and let him drive.

We passed most of our neighbors who were already digging themselves out, inch by inch, layer by layer, maybe snow really did make you slower and nicer, there was nothing left but to do it. You couldn’t have the fire to be mean.

Or maybe it was a complex.

My father started veering into snow piles to clear the streets and work his way up to the more rural parts near us, we already lived on the outer edges of St. Cloud, so it was pretty far out.

I didn’t suspect I was going to see Celeste that day but I did hear that she lived somewhere romantic, somewhere remote and gothic, that’s what Paisley said.

I was a little taken back when I saw a slate gray box house on top of hill and surrounded by white. I wondered what Emily Dickens would feel about it.

Probably something meaningful, I just felt a little dumbstruck as I saw Celeste Renoir struggling through the slushy white waves. She had a shovel in her hand but she wasn’t using it right, more like wielding it than digging with it.

I rolled down my window and started to wave, “Celeste, Celeste, hey!” My father glanced at me but I was looking at her.

Her eyes flicked up and I grinned, “need a hand?” I ask, she opened her mouth but I was already gesturing my father onward, “the cavalry is here!”

I hoot but Celeste was still stony-faced, maybe she didn’t get the point of winter yet.

My father puts the plow in high gear and I gesture for Celeste to get out of the way.

“Is that one of your little friends?” My father asks and I just shrug.

“Something like that.” I hang my head out the window, “you’ll recognize her soon.” Or at least, he should, Celeste had starred in every ballet since mine.

I blink and watch her struggle backward with her usual cast-iron look that said the snow had arrived to personally offend her. I leap out of the car as soon as we get close enough.

“And here you are,” I cry, “and not even in your ballet shoes,” I see with a huge grin, “bestill my beating heart.”

She gives me another unamused look and tries to trudge closer to me, “Don’t tell anyone.” She says dryly, “it’ll ruin my reputation.”

I chuckle, “I won’t tell anyone even Celeste Renoir gets stuck in the snow too.”

She makes a face at me, “if that’s what I’m known for I think I should move.”

I tilt my head and reach out to take the shovel from her as she creeps closer, “known for what?”

“Not getting stuck in the snow,” she sniffs, “there are better reputations than that.”

I try to grasp the handle, “oh darling,” maybe I said that too sweetly, “you’re known for that time Neddy Johnson wet himself in front of you.”

She snorts and makes a little wicked grin, “you’re next.”

I laugh, “you wish.” I take the shovel from her, “now let me show you how it’s done.” I start digging her out and back toward her house, inch by inch, layer by layer.

“My hero.” She says flatly and I didn’t know why she was like this.

She follows dimly in my footsteps as I plow our way back to her front steps where my dad was already chatting with Mr. Renoir warmly.

“…my wife keeps coming home with these pamphlets about how ballet can mess up your feet, do you guys worry about that too? The misses seems a little out of sorts about it.”

Mr. Renoir just hums, “we let Celeste do what she wants, if she says it’s safe, we let her.”

“Oh my five definitely do what they want too!” My father gives a full-bellied laugh and I felt like I was intruding on them.

Mr. Renoir adjusted his gloves, “ballet is good for them I think.”

My father makes an uncommitted motion, “maybe. We still won’t let Kit-Kat do en pointe- not yet at least.”

“That’s a shame,” Celeste speaks up now and I glance at her, she was giving them a steady look like she was a glamorous 42 year old in a fur coat on in the middle of New York City instead of 14 and standing here.

My father turns to blink at her with the same freckly smile, “Celeste! We were just talking about you girls.” He winks at me.

Celeste was holding someone’s imaginary gaze, “Rebecca could be very good if she advanced to en pointe.”

I raise my eyebrow, “uh, maybe?”

She glances at me and looks me up and down, “you’re tall.” She states and I droop a little.

“So people remind me.”

“And narrow. With good hips.” I don’t look her in the eye when she says that, “you should consider joining me for the night practices.”

I scratch my nose half-heartedly, “I’ll think about it.”

Mr. Renoir looked between the two of us, “I hear school is still starting at eleven love.”

Celeste tosses her hand back like she was sweeping her chin-length hair out of her face, “don’t remind me.”

I laugh a little, “I know the feeling.”

“Why don’t I give you I ride to school little lady Renoir?” My father answers genially and both Renoir’s look at him steadily.

Mr. Renoir nods, “that is very nice of you Mr. Johnson.”

He just puts his hands out, “I’m happy to help.” He shakes the snow off his pants, “Kit-kat’s friends are always welcome.”

Celeste raised a fine eyebrow up at me and I wish at least my father wasn’t calling me a candy bar at that specific moment.

Celeste goes back in to get her school bag and I kick a couple ice clumps out of the way as my father makes small talk with the French businessman. Her dad ran a small Home Goods store and Celeste’s mom taught at the university.

I open the door for Celeste the second she comes out, she gives me the same almost-smile as the night of the Nutcracker dance. The one where I stumbled and caught her eye like she wasn’t going to lie to me.

It was a strange feeling when you knew someone in the way you don’t know them.

I hopped into the bucket seat and let Celeste have the window.

My father tunes us out like he wasn’t there and let me talk to her freely.

Celeste talks in statements, “I can’t believe we have school today.” She said with a piercing gaze, “the world could end and the Minnesota school system would still make me leave my house.” She cursed and my father turned the radio up.

I laughed, I loved when she cursed, “that’s a pretty accurate picture. But you sound like staying in your house would keep you alive when the apocalypse zombies come.”

She rolls her eyes and folds her arms across her chest, “obviously I would boil water and wait for the zombies to all freeze up here.”

“What about ice zombies?” I joke, “A costco would work better.” That was something I read online.

“A what?” She was looking at me like she wasn’t a 42 year old in a fur coat in New York City.

I give a little laugh and tell her about the Costco Zombie Theory and we discuss silly plans and bad plots in The Walking Dead, it’s not the worst moment I’ve had with the Mean Girl Ballet Queen.

In fact, I think I got another smile this time.

——— 

Celeste Renoir started to sarcastically call me her hero after I came for her in the snow drift that winter and I sarcastically turned a fine shade of red back. I wasn’t very good at sarcasm.

I was fifteen and we were starting high school like we wanted to spring to stardom or wall street or the white house, kids had a lot of dreams right then.

Eventually that year, I just wanted to sleep and stop biting my nails to the nub.

Emily Dickens might have thought something beautiful about this too, but I wasn’t very good at beauty, Tina said that’s why I would never get a date to Homecoming Dance.

That was true. My brother had stopped going on reddit and said it was just because they were cowards who couldn’t hit 6’1 yet.

I didn’t really care, I told myself I should care, I also told myself I shouldn’t.

I started to do after-hours practices with Celeste, not because I was crazy about it and not because I was very good, but because it was there and I might as well. Ian called me boring again for that.

Celeste was working in the same way clockwork does: it just keeps ticking, not how ballerina’s in shows did, but with sweat down her back and abs forming under her leotards. She was lithe muscle and perhaps something in her that ticked harder than any clock.

I watched with my mouth dry and I taking too many water breaks. I started to feel guilty.

She spins in circles and I try to keep up with her on Ms. Smith’s word, she says I’m a natural, but I just feel clumsy and like I want to stop wearing eye makeup.

Celeste started teaching me just as much as Ms. Smith did, she told me to squeeze my core and straighten my spine, she took my leg and positioned it in the perfect pique passe. She puts her hands on my belly and back and has me do breathing exercises.

She holds my arms up, she curves my foot more precisely and lifts my inner thigh higher and higher until I feel like I could kick the sky. But was starting to feel really guilty.

It was the middle of the week on an almost-summer day and on the brink of becoming sophomores.

Celeste and I were sitting on the benches and Ms. Smith had gone onto her other classes that day, we regularly practiced alone by that point.

I looked at Celeste, I watch her peel her ballet shoes off her curved feet and massage the inner sole, I give a deep sigh, “does Ms. Smith know you’re bleeding?” I ask softly as I see the deep red wet across her toes.

Celeste’s eyes flash up, “I’m sure she knows enough.”

I look dimly forward, “you should take some time off. Or maybe…she’ll do something.”

Celeste gave a grave smile, “I’m sure she’s been pretending to ignore it for awhile now.”

I glare, “what, do you hate yourself or something? Your bruises look like they have bruises.”

She swished her dark hair back and I think of a Teen Vogue magazine, “everyone hates themselves a little bit ‘becca.”

I roll my eyes dramatically, “That’s stupid. Do your parents know you’re this much of a teenager?” My mom always said teenagers were like that, but maybe Ian would say it was the French in her. He wanted to study international relations instead of be a minister now, I wanted to eat more pudding in bed.

She exhales softly, “I do it because I can.”

I fold at the knee and meet her on the floor, “here.” I reach out to take the long ace bandage from her cracked-knuckle hands, “I’m sure I can get it tighter than you.”

She arches her eyebrows, “my hero.”

She always said it like she was cracking-wise but I take the bandage from her hand and delicately brush against her callused and bloody feet.

“No one wins by breaking their big toe Celeste,” I finally say and she gives me another bored stare.

“They don’t win by barely trying either.” She brushes her hand across my cheek, like a caress.

“Until what?” I skim my knuckles across the deep calluses on the meat of her foot.

“Until I get there,” she grabs my cheek again, but I don’t look up from her bleeding toes, “my parents had nothing, they went to the same university on scholarships and night shifts. I’m not going to come crashing done after they climbed all the way up. That’s not what you do.” She spits the words, “You make something of yourself.”

There was something lovely about the way she forms those words, but I don’t know how to tell her I saw something lovely in her. Not at a time like this. I say nothing at all and she lets my face go.

“Not that you know,” she tilts her head and I am finally looking up, “your family has been here for ages, unmoving I suppose.”

My eyes are wide, her eyes are smokey, I felt the guilt. “Be careful.” I finally say, “I just want you to be careful.”

She sticks out her bleeding foot and I finish bandaging the right one, she finally leans down, “careful of what,” she frowns, “you?”

I blow air out of my nose, “It is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer.” I clear my throat, “Said by Jane Eyre.”

“Jane Eyre.” She lifts her left foot for me to touch her.

“Yes,” I wrap my hand around her ankle and smile weakly, “I’m not such a country bumpkin as you might assume, Jane Eyre might have a thing or so to say about this.”

Celeste snickers, “maybe I should be careful of you first and foremost.”

I shake my head and keep wrapping, “I’m thinking of joining basketball.” I watch her face.

Her eyes go wide ever so slightly, “why?”

“The same reason I joined ballet,” I say flatly and she chuckles.

“Because you’re silly and tall?”

I run my hand down the spine of her foot, “precisely.”

She gives an extravagant sigh, “I suppose it can’t be helped if that’s how you feel.”

I tuck the end of the bandage in, “I’ll still come to all the performances. Heck, I’ll even come here after school.” As long as she didn’t touch my chest and run her hands down my back again.

She gave me an even look, “you don’t have to.”

I stood up and dust myself off, “oh, but I will.”

She shook her head and leaned back on one of the mirrors, “I guess you don’t have better things to do. But I don’t expect heroism after this.”

I sit down next to her again, “no promises.”

She smiles anyway.

———-

It turns out I was much better at basketball than I was ballet, I didn’t like the running part but I had a promise with my mom and I had to do something.

I was seventeen and this was my last year having to do anything, I quit the flute by sheer force of will but let senior year rile me into a basketball frenzy.

We could win some sort of Minnesota championships if I just kept watching the ball swish down into the bottomlessness pit of the net. That’s what it felt like, that I could just keep falling down with it.

They said I was a natural.

The year felt like a blur, I was taking the SAT one moment, and then applying to colleges the next and then I was facing the death knell of childhood.

I was still seventeen and people were asking why I hadn’t been asked to one dance thus far. Some of the boys had finally passed my 6’3 after all.

I didn’t know what to tell them and I kept shooting baskets instead.

The champions would be held in St Cloud that year, the school buzzed about it and people gave me high fives when I passed their classrooms. I didn’t really understand it, but the finals were when I saw Celeste properly again that year.

Celeste was applying for dance schools that year and distracted by her own bleeding feet and multiple requests from people to go to prom with them. We had grown closer.

We texted every night, I sent her silly pictures of dogs and quotes from Virginia Woolf. She sent me Kitchen Nightmare gifs and ghost stories she found online. She liked ghost stories but not in the way that scared her, but the way it seemed to scare other people.

That sounded dumb too but Celeste was more flare than she was sincerity, I could appreciate her silly selfies she sent me from her dance studio at 11 at night though. She always did smile widely at the end of any practice, like she had figured something out no one else had.

I sent her basketballs with faces drawn on them in lieu of selfies back.

I was playing in the championships and I texted Celeste every night, it was my senior year. However, I was not prepared for her to show up at my last game itself- especially not prepared for her to show up in the wrong cheerleading outfit and yell weird phrases at me whenever I got the ball.

“Becca is the green tea!” She yelled, “stronger than you!”

I laughed and had to wipe my palm down before I took the shot.

“Becca is the gal for you and me, her arms are concrete!” They were silly and I almost suspected she was drunk by the end of the night.

I was breathing heavily by the fourth quarter and I could barely keep myself from taking a water break every five minutes, but maybe that was something else.

I pass the ball to Diana at the last moment, I don’t mind when she makes the winning shot and the game is over in minutes, in seconds. The bell buzzes and that’s an adrenaline rush onto itself.

The moment is sweeter than ripe oranges and I can hear yelling and hands ruffling my hair and hugging me on all sides. We cheer until some of my teammates’ lungs give out.

I only take a break from yelling wordlessly when I saw a small figure in the bleachers who was flashing down a smug grin.

I shake my head and untangle myself from my teammates embrace to go jog over to the steps, she walks slowly over to me too.

I prop my chin up and can’t stop smiling, “you came!”

She looks up at me with ease, “well, you’ve come to all of mine.”

I snicker and look her up and down, “what’s with the outfit? Those aren’t even the right colors.” I comment on the strange cheerleader outfit with orange trims and just a pompom picture on the front.

She puts her hands on her hips, “at least it wasn’t the other team’s colors. I honestly bought the first thing on the rack.”

I run a hand through my hair, “it’s the thought that counts.” I go to hug her and she goes to push me away.

“You’re sweaty!”

I circle my arms around her without actually touching, “isn’t that what you’re here for?”

She sighs into my collarbone and accepts her fate, a give her a proper hug, “losing to you as the Sugar Plum Fairy is the tragedy of my life you know.”

I chuckle back, “We can’t all be winners of course.”

She takes my cheeks in her hand and I pause as she looks me in the eye, “true.” She lifts herself up on her tiptoes and kisses me on the cheek. “Congratulations.”

My mouth falls open and I stand there a little dumbstruck, “what was that for?”

“For winning, duh, and,” she looks over my shoulder at some of our classmates, “they should know.”

I tilt my head to the side and she grabs my wrist, I nod blankly, “okay.”

“Do you want to come over to my house later?”

I can’t say no to that and nod again.

-

Celeste Renoir lived at the top of a spooky hill that Edgar Allen Poe might approve of if I could actually feel the feelings of dead people.

I was still working on that.

Celeste led me up to her house in her little orange skirt that looked still too cold for the Minnesota spring. I look at the back of her head and feel a little younger, I study her sleek black hair and smile to myself, she had kissed me on the cheek.

Celeste led me up to her room and I sit down on her window seat with the slim light of a distant moon behind me.

I squint at her through the dark but don’t ask to turn the light on.

She settles herself across from me in an old wooden chair and I swear she’s smiling again, “this is the point I would offer you a drink or a cigarette, but we’re both athletes so I guess we’ll pass.”

I snort, “drinking? Smoking?” I shake my head, “What would my mom say.”

She kicks me gently, “I lost the Sugar Plum Fairy part to a square.”

I laugh, “would you have it any other way?”

She twirls her hair, “ideally I would have won it and you would swoon at me.”

I lean back to lie against the window, “you think 12 year old me was capable of swooning? I was barely capable of using a camcorder unsupervised.”

She crept forward slowly from her chair and took the cushion seat next to me, “well, that’s no fair then.”

I leaned my forehead on the window now, “swooning is for other people Princess.” I say evenly, she had recently been the Swan Princess in a production. “I’m more of the hero type, ya know?”

She lets out a large sigh, “I’ve heard.” Her eyes go soft and doughy, I fidget, had she seen through me? Was she going to call me out?

“It is awfully boring at the studio without you though,” she smooths her own skirt out.

“No fun without watching someone watching you become a star?” I joke and want to push her hair back behind her ear. “Don’t worry,” I finally say, “I’ll still be watching.”

She wets her lips and I can’t read the expression on her face. “I see…”

“I’ll even wrap your feet for you,” I say softly, too softly. “When you do that silly thing where you try and dance yourself into a movie explosion.”

She looks up to ceiling with a deep sigh, “you are ridiculous.”

I give a half smile and look down at my lap, “I have to do something to be less boring.”

Celeste looks surprised at me for the first time it felt like, her pretty eyes going wide, “boring?”

 

“Boring.” I confirm, still trying to joke.

“You somehow think you’re boring?”

I look the other direction and don’t know what to say to that, I put the nubs of my fingers down. I had stopped biting them every single hour, but daily was still pretty bad.

“Don’t worry about it,” I say lamely, “people like you always have…things. I’m sure you have enough passion for a whole city.” I shrug, “I just don’t.”

She leans forward and practically forces my chin up, “you really think you’re boring?”

I shrug, “what else could it be? Besides tall and covered in freckles.”

She gives a sly smile, “but you see, I’ve always been interested in those freckles.” I make a face at her, something mis-computed in my brain as if I tried to process it on a 1998 Dell. “You could even say I was the one at least swooning a little.”

I raise my eyebrows and try to wipe the sweat off my palms, my face is flushed and downturned, “you don’t have to…you know.”

She takes my hand gently and her eyes are wide, a little frightened, she hovers closer to me like an unsure star caught in orbit.

“I-I,” She was gaping and struggling with something like English words or an unclear pasta recipe. “I’m not.” She finally says and her face is inches from mine but tired. I hold her gaze a little like I’m looking for something, I concede.

We’re both very tired.

“Alright darling.” I reached for the back her head and draw her into a heady flashing kiss.

As slow as galaxies merging and an eleven year old slipping their feet on en pointe slippers, slow and rough and inevitable. I kiss her with a breath-catching hitch and lean her head back until everything is dizzy and glowing.

The unnamable guilt melts away for a moment, something soft and anonymous lies underneath.

She kisses me timidly, like she didn’t know what to do with herself or any limb she had honed into a perfect machine over all these years. She grabs my ponytail and drags me down anyway.

It tastes a little like the first snowfall and sparklers in July.

We kiss until all the breath is sucked out of me and every thought I ever had is but a memory, I kiss her because I can. Who knew.

We only pull away when we’re both panting and flushed.

She is smiling, truly wonderfully smiling until the dimples break across her cheeks and her eyes look like they might be watering. It was like I was waiting a lifetime for it, and she smiles once more, the dawn breaking and I could kiss her again, and again.


	2. The Glass Window

The first one they put in her cage was a Girtablilu, a fiery youth with bright red hair to match his thrashing stinger tail and scorpion torso.

He looked like he would set fire to every bush and tree in sight just to watch the visitors gape and bask in his own flames, which he did. Paria watched him flash his hundred-watt smile her way and scorch the sand into a charred goo, almost glass and almost nothing.

She wrinkled her nose at him and waited for the creature to tire himself out.

The satyr across the way, Foloi, snickered at her like he knew, he always knew something, she makes a face at him and squares her shoulders, he just plays a jaunty tune on his pan pipes back.

She doesn’t even bother to learn this Girtablilu’s name before raising the water level in one flick of her finger and letting him flounder, he tries to evaporate the waves before they hit him but Paria jerks her chin up and sends him capsizing.

Her caretaker, Sydney, gives her a sharp look as the other Mythic is pulled into the undertow. Sydney wasn’t amused.

Paria just fluffs her dark hair, she wasn’t going to share her enclosure and she wasn’t going to be mated or bonded or subjected to whatever it is they were planning.

Foloi plays the tune of some cartoonish theme song a little girl had been singing at him earlier, Paria gets a headache and dives down to the bottom of her cage. They fish out the Girtablilu with a crane later and leave her alone for another week.

——–

Paria had to take the second one out by hand. He was a Jengu and surfed the waves like a slick oil spill, his gills fluttering open and closed as he gave her a placid curious look. He tried to smile her way when she surfaced and gesture at her shells and seaweed belt. Paria shakes her head, she tries to get across that she isn’t interested.

She threw him over the glass wall, raising the waters with a swift shift of her weight. Her second caretaker, Maya, groans as the guests scatter and jump as the waves splashes over the top of the enclosure and a Mythic crashes over the glass.

Paria pointedly raises her eyebrows at her handlers as if to be very clear. The Jengu is out before sunrise the next day.

——–

Paria didn’t know why they kept bothering, she managed to take out the naga and kinarra with a swish of her tale and little creativity with layering water on feathers. The naga almost strangled her but the two of them struck a deal.

He wasn’t interested in being paired for show either, they both turned the tank upside down until Sydney intervened and signed to Paria that she might as well knock it off.

Paria had a feeling it was the zoos idea to make an exhibit of two different Mythics pairing off, but she wasn’t going to have either Sydney or management walking all over her. It wasn’t their business if she stares out her tank window and blows depression bubbles to the top of the waters.

She didn’t need any more strange zoo-transfer-boys pushed on her with fanfare and a poem to her long dark hair and pretty eyes. Paria knew she was pretty enough and she didn’t need a second opinion.

She sat at the bottom of her tank and blew fine crystalline bubbles to the surface one by one, let them never know.

——–

The ‘issue’ arose around two months earlier.

She saw her the first time when the moon was a slim crescent up above and the hallways next to her were an echoing ghost town, Paria liked being awake during those times. The halls bore long shadows and a deep silence, she was alone with her thoughts and so many other things.

Or at least, she thought she was.

Paria always assumed there was something huge and ominous in the tank next to her, it was lower than hers and there was only a large plexiglass window separating the bottom of her tank with the top of theirs.

Perhaps a miniature kraken or an electric squid was housed there, she didn’t know. Paria always figured the deep-sea creatures would shine their fanged teeth at her at one point and she would have nightmares. She avoided that dark seven feet of glass next to her for the most part, but maybe she felt like having nightmares that evening.

Paria was swimming back and forth on the bottom, running her hands over oysters and counting in her head how long another pearl would take to form in there. That was one of her enrichment programs: diving for pearl and collecting shells. She figured the zoo thought those were appropriate activities for her, now all she needed to do was sing for them and listen to their money buckets fill. She didn’t sing for them.

The pearls themselves could be lovely though, she wasn’t completely opposed to the smooth misshapen lumps in her hands and off-colored sheen. It made her want to start a hoard and pretend to be a dragon instead of a nascent mermaid.

She could be a pearl dragon, ten feet, no, twenty feet tall, and sitting on her growing hoard until she kissed the sky and no one could see her anymore. It was a pleasant dream to pass the time.

Paria ran her hands along the spine of one of her oysters and her eyes unfocused, this one would be ready soon, perhaps she would weave into the seams of her belt with the others. Her vision is blurry and dim when she catches a flash of light in the corner of her eye, a bright burst that struck her across the face. She turns her head slowly, feeling her skin prickle as she rotates in place, an electric surge flared in the cage next to her, she frowns.

She didn’t know much about the cage next to her, on some level she never really wanted to know. She waited for a moment, pausing as she gazed into the pitch-black waters of the deep-sea cage, deep and unknowable.

The water was still and calm, fathomless, she felt shiver down her spine, the same light sparks through the dark like a beacon. Paria raises her eyebrows, she doubted the glowing light from there could be anything too good.

Despite herself, Paria pushes off the cage floor and tentatively approaches the edge, she could only live in the shadow of this place so long, she was drawn to the side.

She waits for another minute and starts to wonder if it was her imagination, if she had just seen the strip of lightning in her head. She hums for a moment and thinks about turning around.

A white light like a flash bomb lit up a long twisting figure, Paria raises her eyebrows. Something was definitely in there, and close.

The murky outline of something curved and twisting takes shape in front of her. She presses herself up against the glass and tries to make out as much of it as she can. It was long, with a mop of something swirling around its head, like kelp or a storm cloud. She couldn’t make out the full form, it wasn’t huge like she had expected.

Paria waits and purses her lips until the next brilliant flash and a blip of light seeps into the depths and lights up the face of a creature. Paria’s breath hitches, it was humanoid. Humanoid with a long scaled tailed and slits of gills on her neck. Paria’s pulse spikes, like her, the striking profile makes her head go dizzy.

The other creature had wild flowing red hair that swirled around her like it was alive. Her skin was a similar brilliant red against flushed black stripes on her sides and arms. Her tail was a flashing dark maroon and she had eyes like gaping holes, Paria’s mouth was open, another mermaid.

They didn’t bother to cover her up with a shell bra like they did Paria, she hovered naked and raw in the water, coiled muscles and bright white fanged teeth. She was made of hard edges and jagged points instead of the soft brushstrokes that were expected of Paria.

The mermaid had a series of spikes along her spine and a tail that whipped around the water like a razor, her face was something sharp and almost alien. She had the same mouth as her and a lovely round nose under a pair of wide faded eyes took up a good portion of her face. It was ghoulish and breathtaking in one gasping vision. Paria’s thoughts spark and run into each other, she couldn’t help but feel her heart squeeze, almost painfully.

_What was that?_

——–

Paria had no idea what that was.

She had a sense of it deep in her bones but she couldn’t put a name to it, that was another mermaid, another mermaid filled with pointed teeth and something electric (literally).

She tries to dismiss it for the night, the figure disappears in one bat of her powerful tail and Paria rises quickly to the surface and gasps the sharp cold air of the night. She let the air shock her into clarity and she panted breathlessly, staring at the moon until her senses came back to her.

 _It’s just another mermaid,_ she reminds herself. _We’re separated even._

She closes her eyes and counts to ten until all her thoughts are gone. She falls asleep with a ringing in her ears and some deep itch in her veins. She can feel a restlessness take root in her core, something was different now.

The image starts to haunt her waking thoughts, she closes her eyes and they play like a movie in the back of her head. A red mermaid with black stripes, that glowed, Paria would like to glow. Paria would like to something.

She starts picking at her food, blowing bubbles, dismissing all the new dreams seeping into her long nights, bad dreams, terrible dreams that filled her stomach with cold water and something coiled. They were not necessarily nightmares though, but something else entirely.

She starts floating loosely by the glass window at the bottom of the enclosure and watching the nothingness of the next cage over.

It was still mostly dim and empty, but some faint lights were visible, LEDs were turned on during the day so the guests could catch a glimpse of the deep and get some sort of brief thrill. Maybe that’s what Paria was looking for too.

She waits at the side by her oysters and swears she keeps seeing the frame of wild red hair and a lightning spine. She sees that and nothing else, she sees nothing.

Paria starts to eat less and blow bubbles from the bottom of her cage.

——–

By the tenth day after the sighting Paria decides to suck up her pride and approach her caretakers post-feeding that morning. She could tell they were discussing her but she tries to ignore it. She mostly wanted to ignore them for the rest of her long life, she stifles that impulse for just one moment.

She pops up quickly and starts signing furiously before she even knew if they were watching, Sydney focuses on her with an even look.

Paria moves her hands, ‘ _Who is that?_ ’ She points loosely toward the far wall.

Sydney raises an eyebrow, Paria rarely signed to them, her mother had been the talkative one, she had only learned from her- not taken up the mantle.

Sydney knelt and signed slowly back to her, as if they were rusty, ‘ _who?’_

Paria sinks a little lower in the water with her eyes narrowed, she smothers her ego and points more clearly toward the right, the next cage over. She sees Maya raise her eyebrows behind Sydney and whisper something to Brienne, Brienne just shrugs.

Sydney seems to smile gently, as if she knew something now, Paria’s shoulders tensed as she wonders if she was giving something away.

Sydney signs to her, ‘ _That is Riga. She lives with the other hadal zone Mythics._ ’

Paria pushes herself down in the water and watches Sydney with just her eyes showing- waiting for any more information, Sydney just smiles down at her and Paria gnashes her tale.

Paria rises again to use her hands, ‘ _Who is she?’_

Sydney signs back right away, ‘ _a mermaid,_ ’ she expresses quickly, ‘ _like you._ ’

Paria bites the inside of her cheek and is torn between asking more questions and going to go hide underneath a rock.

“Is Pari being friendly today? She is such a beaut in this light,” Paria clenched her jaw as she hears the manager of the zoo’s aquarium section approach, Brian.

She snarls briefly and swims down before she can read anymore of the words from their lips. She didn’t need anymore. She blinks at the bottom window, examining the long slices of dark glass.

Riga, the mermaid, deep sea Riga.

————

Paria saw her again by the light of the high noon sun, she almost didn’t expect it, the sudden closeness and wide-eyed stare. Riga rose like a mirage from the depths.

Paria was situated with her belly on the sand floor and chin propped up, her vision was glazed over as she kept her usual watch on the window. She ignores the steady tapping of a toddler on the glass next to her. Her perch was more routine now than anything, she occasionally blew another bubble to form a thick sea foam above her.

She was in the middle of a long thought about fashioning a rope out of the flowers they gave her when there it was.

She saw a river of violent red hair before she saw anything else.

A river of impossibly long hair and that ghoulish barely-there face, Paria can feel her mouth making a small ‘o’ shape. She was lovely. Lovely in the dark and glowing gently against the bright sheen of Paria’s lagoon water, she was staring flatly ahead, directly at her and unmoving. Statuesque.

Paria opens her mouth uselessly and all she can look at is Riga’s long jagged stripes across her body and her spindly muscled limbs, a wiry torso ending in a powerful tail. Riga probably wasn’t made to dive for pearls.

Paria goes to sign something, to do anything, but her muscles tense, all she can do is feel her temperature rise slowly, slowly, and then she feels like she’s burning up from the inside out. Riga is still looking at her with something like an expressionless gaze and then Paria is turning around.

She wasn’t ready, she was having day-nightmares all over again it felt like, she swims to the top of her enclosure with five strokes and her face on fire.

This didn’t feel normal, this didn’t feel like just a hobby right then.

She beaches herself on the sand bank and plants her head face down in the dirt. Visitors inquire on whether or not she is sick.

——–

Paria had her regularly scheduled doctor’s appointment the next week, she was almost relieved. Maybe they would cure her of her sudden aching thoughts. She hadn’t seen Riga again, or at least, not in person, she had however relived the second of closeness and hot tingle throughout her fingers and skin again and again.

Paria was willing to give her doctor another chance.

She lets him examine her pulse and lungs, prodding at her sea bladder and scales, they go through the great effort it takes to weigh her (they liked to keep it low apparently). She was ‘easy’ for once and even Dr. Schlotman’s interest seemed piqued.

He took her temperature last and hummed thoughtfully as she sat on his sturdy metal table.

Maya cleared her throat and Paria paid attention to their mouths, “I know, right?” Maya says with her palms up, “this is barely Pari.”

The doctor seems to hum again.

“We just have to know if anything’s wrong,” Sydney chimes in and Paria is suddenly grateful for a short minute.

Dr. Schlotman slowly, carefully, takes out the thermometer from her underarm and looks at it thoughtfully, “It’s not that unusual,” he shakes it, “though truthfully I never thought this one would ever show.”

Maya gives him a concerned look, “show, like what?”

The doctor chuckles, “I thought you would know.”

Sydney clears her throat, “we would be very interested in knowing fully.”

He nods curtly, “she is showing all the signs of something akin to, well,” he chuckles, “heat.”

Paria’s cheeks flare and she hopes none of them were paying any attention to her. Sydney’s eyes go wide.

“That’s impossible,” she finally says, “she’s never been exposed to any pheromones. She’s never even had a fecundity ceremony with a school.”

The doctor raises his eyebrows, “she’s more than matured, isn’t she?”

Maya sniffs and glances at her, “more than mature, yeah. But…”

“These things happen,” the doctor stands up and looks between all three of them, “of course, she’s not showing all of the symptoms, but her temperature and hormones are evidence enough.”

Sydney seemed to swallow thickly, “we can’t introduce any new merfolk to her tank. They’ll attack her.” Sydney and Maya both glance at her (missing) right tail fin. “She gets around fine with her hydrokinesis but others will have that too. They’ll try and take her out.”

From what Paria understood, unrelated mermaids did not tolerate weakness or being ‘defunct’ in others- it would slow down the school. Her stomach sinks, and maybe every mermaid felt that way too.

She looks at her hands bitterly for a moment.

“Who said anything about more mermen?” The doctor says steadily, Paria looks up pointedly and a quiet buzz overtook the room.

“I suppose we could try other types of Mythics,” Maya finally spoke up slowly, “just to emotionally pair with. Nothing more.”

The room shared a glance, Paria glared at them and signing something angrily, they ignored it.

They introduced a water-centaur to her cage first. It didn’t end well.

——–

Paria spent another couple weeks brooding, kicking suitors out and trying to manage her temperature. She hesitantly approached the glass window again. She practiced in her head what she wanted to say, what she wanted to try to communicate, what to try at all.

For some reason, Paria had a notion Riga had answers of some sort, and it’s not like the other mermaid could attack her through the glass. She waits, she almost gnaws through her bottom lip, hoping each night might be the night. It takes two days.

Riga takes another two days to appear once more from the depths of her vast cage.

She was turned away from Paria this time, once more in the middle of the night with her long body and light-up spine a shock of brightness in the dark. Paria flares her gills and tries to steady her own heartbeat.

Riga doesn’t pause in her distant motion but Paria gradually, slowly, went to press her hand against the cool glass, keeping her eyes on her. She steadies her shaking fingers, she taps.

She manages a single firm tap, loud and distinct.

The movements of the glowing white bioluminescence doesn’t cease but Paria begins to tap again, tap like she could dig a hole into mountains with a woodpecker’s touch. Her mother taught her this, human sign language first, and then a universal Morse code from her own people. The pacific language.

She lets out a rusty series of taps, etching a sloppy ‘hello’ in three syllables.

The light stops, it’s flickering increases, it stops and turns around.

‘Hello’ she taps again and feels her heart pound in her wrist, she didn’t know what she was doing.

The next moment feels like an eternity and she freezes when the light flashes in her direction, it starts to come back toward her. The flaring red hair materializing from the emptiness, she was seeing her.

Riga approaches with ease, her movements sure and unhurried as she made her way to the side of the glass, Paria earnestly searches her face for something. She goes to tap on the glass again but Riga had already put her hand there.

‘Hello,’ she taps back.

Paria could practically do a summersault, there it was, and she wasn’t even glaring at her, she was just looking pleasantly ahead, curiously, Paria knew the other mermaid could understand her.

‘Who is this?’ Riga finally taps with deft easy fingers, Paria tries to put her mind to work, sorting out her unclear knowledge of pacific language.

She hesitantly makes a couple more clumsy sounds, ‘like you.’

Riga tilted her head to the side and her huge milky eyes flick down, Paria jerks her powerful tail in the water back and forth.

‘You have a tail,’ Paria translates her communication slowly, Riga blinks, ‘are you from…the trench?’

Paria shakes her head but isn’t sure that reaches her, ‘I’m from here.’ She finally taps out with a frown, ‘my mother was from a reef.’

She watches Riga make a sharp pointed smile, Paria’s heart flutters, Riga touches the glass, ‘a lagoon swimmer.’ Riga looked strangely entertained, ‘of course.’

Paria squirms back and forth, ‘and who are you?’ She really did only know the basics.

Riga’s smile faltered, ‘the trench.’ She says back basely, ‘I thought I was all alone here.’

Paria slowly, tentatively puts her whole hand over the thick plexiglass, it almost matches up with Riga’s, ‘you aren’t.’

Riga gives another bright and surreal smile, she taps slowly.

They begin to talk.

Her name was Riga. She was from the ocean, the real ocean, she pierced one of her lungs in a fight with a beaked squid and woke up here with a team of specialists hovering over her. She wished they hadn’t.

Paria responded, she was named after a small ocean, as they all were. Her mother and she were taken in almost immediately after Paria was born, after she was injured. Her mother had adored the caretakers, the pearls, the faces of the passing stranger.

Riga smiles fondly at that as she taps, ‘you must miss her.’

Paria’s mouth tightens and she looks down at the sandy bottom, she strokes the side of the window, ‘do you miss anyone?’

Riga paused and her large milky eyes stare on ahead, ‘they’re gone.’ She said slowly, painfully, ‘they cast me out before I was attacked.’

Paria flinched at that and just nodded, she only begins again after a long pause, ‘what’s the ocean like?’

The faint smile returns to Riga’s face, ‘big.’ Paria laughs at that and Riga’s chest shakes as well, ‘wonderful. Cold, warm. It smells like every corner of the world.’ Riga seemed to make something like a sigh, ‘I miss the currents most, and the surface. I miss the surface as well.’

She seems sad and Paria could only sit up straight, ‘they don’t let you go up?’

She shrugs and then looks away, ‘let me tell you more about the ocean.’

She begins to spin tales of large angle fish and epic waters and diving deeper than her wildest dreams, the ocean was vast and chilled and dangerous. Paria can only stare on ahead at her and sigh.

Her smile was still tugging at the edges of her mouth.

‘Maybe you can go back.’ Paria finally taps back at her and Riga nods.

‘Perhaps,’ she tilts her head, ‘though I’m not sure I’d like to be alone out there.’

Paria lifts her chin to study her face, ‘well.’ She taps one by one, ‘at least we aren’t alone in here.’

Riga presses herself up against the glass, ‘you are too sweet young one-’

‘Hey,’ she narrows her eyes at her. ‘Not that young.’

‘So you say!’ She looks both ways and then points at a glowing red exit sign, ‘the morning lookers will be here soon.’

Paria nods, maybe she didn’t need the strangers gawking at their communication. Who knew what they might think it means.

‘Maybe I’ll ask my trainers to give you extra tuna,’ Paria jokes with a slight clip to her taps, ‘as thanks.’

Riga presses her fingers lightly to the glass, ‘no,’ she says easily, ‘no thanks needed.’ She smiles, ‘I’m the one that’s glad to meet you.’

That’s when her face heats up again, they both say goodbye and Paria has to go bury her head in the sand a second time. This time she couldn’t stop smiling.

——–

Paria wants to talk to Riga every moment of every day, she wants to ball up her fists and break down the barrier in a hundred little glass shards, _she wants._ She doesn’t however, she restrains herself and regulates herself to just their night time visits and then sleeping during the day.

The aquarium managers were not happy about that, mermaids were supposed to be awake. Paria was too floored to care, she started to tell Riga everything, about her trainers, about her mom, about the satyr across the way that annoyed her but was still basically her closest friend here.

Riga slowly tells her about her fight with a beaked squid that punctured her lung, she told her about sharks and starfish and riding the currents all across the world. Paria can only watch her face twitch, her body tread water easily across from her. Riga.

Her trainers liked that she was smiling more, they didn’t like that her temperature was rising, Paria didn’t know what to tell them- so she doesn’t tell them anything. Her body heat was none of their business she figures.

It’s only when Riga mentions something offhand that Paria pauses to consider her caretakers again. Riga mentioned the sun.

She taps her words to Riga, ‘what about the sunset?’

Riga tilts her head to the side and then taps back on the window, ‘during the dark months. I would go to the straits and the sun would go down across the ice. It was,’ she pauses, ‘lovely.’

‘Straits?’ Paria was thinking.

‘It’s like the ocean, but smaller. More land around us.’

‘I thought you were deep sea?’ Paria asks curiously as she takes in her fearsome features and deep stripes, the idea of seeing her anywhere else felt strange.

Riga’s shoulders shake as she pauses to laugh, ‘of course we breech,’ she shakes her head, ‘I’m still a mermaid. I have lungs for a reason.’

‘Oh,’ Paria feels a little silly now as she thinks about it, ‘they don’t let you go up?’

Riga looks the other way, scratching her chin thoughtfully, ‘only with the prodders. So not really.’

Paria begins to clear her mind, ‘idiots’ she taps a couple times.

Riga laughs again, ‘it’s alright.’ She says, ‘from what you’ve told me at least I get to hide in here. All the watching you have to go through!’

Paria shakes her head, ‘they’re idiots too.’

Riga nods with a small twitch, ‘I’m sure it’s just cause you’re very pretty.’

Paria’s whole body felt like it was on fire, she taps idiot again and her insides are in a frenzy by the time the visitors arrive. There was only so much she could handle.

——–

Paria beaches herself next to her handlers the next day, preparing herself mentally for the scenario she wanted: a quick talk. Some bargaining.

She makes a pointed look at Maya first, she was the softest and gave her extra trout on odd days.

“Something up Pari?” She asks slowly, both signing and talking at once.

Paria is fast, ‘ _Riga.’_ She says several times in a row, ‘ _Riga._ ’

“Oh,” Maya blinks, “I forgot we told you about her, what about Riga?”

‘ _She needs to come up._ ’ Paria signs with a slow clarity.

“Come up where?” Maya tilts her head to the side.

“What’s all this?” Brienne asks next as she brought Paria’s bucket of chum for the day.

Maya glances at her, “Pari is talking about Riga.”

“What?”

Maya turns back to her, “Where does Riga need to go?”

Paria searches the air, ‘ _up.’_ She points, _‘she needs to breech_.’

“Huh,” Maya puts her hands on her hips, “I’ve never seen her concerned like this.”

“She wants the deep-sea mermaid to come to the surface?” Brienne was giving her a look.

‘ _She’s still a mermaid,_ ’ Paria signs with a fierce flick of her wrists, Brienne chuckles a little. ‘ _Lungs.’_

Brienne furrows her brow, “Guess that’s a good point.”

“What’s got into you Pari?” Maya whispers to Brienne before signing to Paria, “where’s this coming from?”

Paria begins to push herself back into the water, ‘ _just do it._ ’ She glares, ‘ _or it’ll be.._ ,’ she pauses, ‘ _bad._ ’ Paria goes to submerge her head.

“Hmm,” Maya turned to Brienne before Paria fully went under, “I guess we’ll be talking to the deep-sea handlers.”

——–

Paria has to wait another week before anything happens, she keeps talking to Riga but she doesn’t mention what she did.

Riga tells her about some changes on the sixth day, ‘my handlers are acting funny.’

Paria tilts her head, ‘how funny?’ She grins, ‘They good at it?’

Riga rolls her large blank eyes, ‘haha.’ She taps, ‘no, they’ve been doing my vitals twice this week and they were talking about some ‘cage,’ a new one. Maybe.’ Riga concentrates, ‘I’m not great at reading them.’

Paria looks to the side, ‘I could talk to them? I know human language well.’

Riga shakes her head, ‘not for me. I’m sure it’s nothing big.’ She leers a little with her pointy grin, ‘maybe they just think I’m getting old.’

Paria wrinkles her nose, ‘nonsense!’ She taps with gusto, ‘I bet you could take down a whale.’

Riga laughs, ‘just for you then. A whole whale.’

It’s a very good night.

The next morning Paria sees a cage too, roomy and placed just outside her exit tunnel, Paria scowls at it and signs to Sydney that she didn’t need another checkup.

Sydney rolls her eyes and tells her ‘ _get in the tube silly girl. It’s a surprise._ ’

“Ugh,” Paria makes a sharp noise at her and everyone else plugs their ears at the squawk, Sydney just gives her relaxed shooing motion. Paria sniffs and swims the slowest she can into the next cage.

Sydney shook her head, ‘ _don’t think I haven’t been watching the night tapes girly,_ ’ she winks.

Paria’s mouth falls open, her hands move clumsily, ‘ _what?_ ’ Sydney just turns around.

The transport is slow and rocky, taking it’s time sloshing her back and forth in the waters, moving her across the hallways with the early morning light to her back. She sees a high wooden fence, it just says ‘exhibit in progress.’

Paria scowls, this was the old wishing well exhibit, she makes a face at her handles as they walk besides the dolly next to her. She crosses her arms across her chest stubbornly.

The wishing well exhibit was deep and filled with rocks, she knew that much. It had housed the talking trout, Jeremy, until he passed away three months ago. She pushes her hair back and scowls, they were probably just going to keep her there while they added another frilly chair to her enclosure or a harp for her to play.

She does angry tail lashes as they open the side of the transport cage and she eases reluctantly into it. ‘ _Ugh,_ ’ she lets them know she’s less than happy.

Sydney nudges her forward and just signs, ‘ _go._ ’

Paria does a small little circle in her new rocky enclosure before she sees another round pool next to hers, her eyebrows raise. It was an exact second pool, separated by a stone wall, she looks at it curiously.

Her handlers turn to leave and Paria tries to peer into the depths. A slash of white comes from down below, Paria practically gasps.

She scrambles away as a fiery red head surges up and flips it’s hair back in one swooping movement, Paria almost falls over. Riga does a happy little turn in place and then stretches her arms wide up to the sky.

She smiles broadly and then turns when she must notice a blur of Paria next to her, she swims up excitedly and taps on the rocks. Paria can only gape at the closeness.

‘You did this,’ she taps fervently, ‘I know you did.’

Paria’s face was on fire and she can only just shrug and tap hesitantly back, ‘it was the right thing to do.’ She wiggles back and forth on the rocks, ‘you wanted it.’

She jumps as she feels a touch, callused hand grab across her own, Riga’s face was wild with something. ‘Paria,’ she taps next to her and leans forward, ‘nice to meet you.’

‘Nice,’ She goes slowly, ‘nice not to be behind glass.’ She inches a little closer, ‘I never dreamed we could…’

‘Yes.’

Paria’s fever almost breaks into a volcano when she feels a pair of lips peck her on the cheek. _Oh,_ her jaw goes slack, Riga kisses her cheek again, a little more to the center now.

She can feel a dopey grin spring across her face and she flips her hand over to hold Riga’s properly, feeling her rugged bright skin and closing in closer and closer.

She leans in, the glass is gone.


	3. The Mushroom Fairy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fungus fairy is born and cast out by her people, she befriends the fairy sent to watch her but something begins to stir close to home
> 
> Spores, the fungus fairy, decides to prove herself against a dark enemy to earn her place back in The Canopy and maybe grow closer to her watcher
> 
> warning: for violence and fighting

_Birth_

She knew what she was.

She knew what she was when she unfurled her wings from her back and flapped the wetness off the tips. She knew when took a deep breath into her spongy newly formed lungs, a gasp of air like a kick to the stomach. The first breath.

She knew when the spores settled in her hair and her spotted skin shone in the weak daylight.

The spores hung in her feathery feelers and the whispering began immediately. The whispering as loud to her ears as thunder strikes, there was no thick cocoon to mellow out the sound now.

She turned her head slowly, slicking back her bangs and trying take in the many pods around her with little dazed heads emerging from within. And the figures watching at the edges.

“What is that?”

“She shouldn’t…”

“Was there a mistake?”

The whispers felt like a hot breath on her neck and she had a sudden rush of emotion, creeping prickle in her neck, she opened her mouth to speak.

Her vocal cords were not quite clear yet, she coughs, they kept talking.

She notices the golden tone of the fairies next to her, breaking out of sunshine yellow pods and the light of the sky glinting in their wings. Down below were little twinkling wings bursting from their blue cocoons with dew and honey in their eyes.

She looks down at herself. Her body was spotted red against a dull gray. She holds her breath again, trying to hold herself erect as the others around her one by one are offered soft spiderweb blankets to dry themselves with.

“Water!” A call resounds around the nursery, the spotted fairy can only stand there with wet wings and shivering thoughts.

She waits, the whispers subside and the eyes avert themselves, perhaps trying to find anything else to look at. The others disappear from around her one by one.

They take their first little faltering flaps on drying wings, lifting into the air with the gentle breeze and helped by the arms of their compatriots.

She watches carefully, a frown setting deep on her face and a little wonder in her mind if maybe the lights would turn off, and it would be like she had never emerged at all.

Finally, a green fairy with fuzzy moth wings and curling grass hair gestures to her, her hand waving in the air stiffly and never looking directly at her.

The spotted fairy has no choice but to flap her layered wings and take off from her sturdy leaf, leaving her red and gray cocoon behind like a curse.

The green fairy doesn’t let her approach too closely and the spotted fairy wobbles and falters her way forward, she sees a long string of lights and newly born figures like her. They wait outside what appeared to be a very long hall and some sort of twisting tree, she felt her heart stop.

Something leapt out of her chest, the spotted fairy felt a surge of warmth and light, belonging. She felt in an instant this, this was her queen.

She felt a gush of affection and delight, nothing else mattered, she ignores the others and gets in line. The warmth in her chest had to mean something.

They were beckoned forward one by one, she crept up through the line, pushed to the back and waiting as the sun slowly set on the leaves. All she could do is listen to the drops of distant dew and the rustling of the forest beyond.

Her breath stuttered in her chest as a few lingering whispers followed her, she barely processed them as she walked forward.

She could feel her heart slowly fill as she grew closer and closer to her queen, a steady voice in her head said it be alright after that. It had to be.

She sees the long grassy yellow carpet and a shining bow of golden tree branches leading forward, she leaps to follow the path, a hand clothed in orange and angry barbs shoots out, someone catches her by the shoulder.

“Not yet,” The red fairy’s voice grunts, she glances at her, her glowing eyes flick over her, “Not you.”

Her mouth hangs open and clutches her hand to her chest, but she waits.

“You shall be called,” the queen’s voice carries all across the room and she tears her eyes back to the front of the room. A sun fairy was waiting with sparks coming off of her like shooting stars, “Aditya.” The queen declares, “Of the dawn.”

The fairy, now Aditya, bounced on her heels and thanked her profusely, red spotted fairy grinned from ear to ear. She was whole now, named.

The other newborn fairy is rushed out the throne room, ready for her home at the top of the skyline, the spotted fairy bites her own lip.

The guard next to her frowned, looking her up and down then back to the queen.

“Send in the last nursling.” The queen beckons, the spotted fairy froze, her grin widening- that was her.

There was still whispering, the red guard was narrowing her eyes and hesitating.

“That’s me!” She declares and runs forward to present herself.

Her queen was a glistening creature almost made of light and fluorescents, a crown of twigs and feathers floated around her brow. Her height was daunting even in her wooden throne and her face was a placid pool of cool water, her skin a shimmering mixture of dappled sun.

The spotted fairy lands and step forward earnestly, she would be whole next.

But something happens in her queen’s face, it darkens, it folds, it turns into a grimace. A twitch in her lip, a wrinkle of her nose. The spotted fairy’s heart sinks into her feet.

“What is this?” Her queen says coolly with a malice of arrows on her tongue. The spotted fairy’s heart twists painfully in her chest. A blue sparrow fairy raises herself up and whispers into her ear, the queen narrows her eyes further, “She just came out?”

The blue fairy nods and look back and forth between, “Please!” The spotted fairy calls out hoarsely, her throat finally clear, “My queen, I don’t know what they’re saying, I’m, I’m.” I am yours.

The queen’s eyes were slits at her throat, “You mean to tell me you are not a fungus fairy?”

Her shoulders raise up like a metal box to protect herself, her mouth falls open helplessly. She knew what she was born as.

The spotted fairy lowers her chin, the queen raises her hand, “Speak up now.”  
  
She looks down at the red circles and touches the spores in her hair, her wings divided by soft gilled paper. The undersides of mushrooms.

She swallows her heart, “I am, I could be…many things.” She clutches her hands, “I am loyal.”  
  
The queens lip curls, “So you admit it?” She took a sharp breath, “And we were so careful.”

“I am yours!” She reaches around uselessly, “I am of The Havens.” She knew that, she knew that deep in her core, desperately, reaching for something in the queen’s eyes.  
  
The queen sits back and gives her nothing but a discerning, disinterred glare, cold as it was rough. “I have no interest in fungi in my kingdom.” She tilts her head, “It only brings death. Despair.” Her lip curls, “a bottom feeder.”  
  
She flinches at every word, the blue fairy once more descends and whispers in her queen’s ear. The queen does not look happy.

“But that would be cruel…” The queen murmurs, but the blue fairy speaks again. A long deliberation of sharp looks and unsaid words ensues.

She stands perfectly still. This was her queen. She drops her hands, it was over.

There is long breathless moment, something pregnant and heavy before the queen turns to her.

She looks up hopefully, the queen lifts her hand, “You shall be Spores.” Her mouth hung open, “Fairy of the base.”  
  
Everything around her stalls, Spores, that was…She was Spores. Her whole body sinks and her queen waves her hand.

“You will not come in my presence again.”

They turn her around and lead her down down down to the base of the tree, she can barely feel the moonlight on her cheek. She is out of her cocoon.

She curls up and cries for the first night, she wished she hadn’t emerged.

——————-

_Life_

Fungus fairies were considered bad luck. Cursed. Bringers of death as their powers crunched up the world and ate up the decay of everything. They were bad omens.

Spores learned that as she grew up, she learned it slowly in starts and fits as she tried to figure out what she was, why she was. She was still answering the last question.

The other fairies did not address her, in fact, they rarely ever come close enough. She lived on the forest floor and they lived in the canopy.

She was the fungus fairy and they said she would bring rot to the wood, so she lived underneath, making small beds for shelter and walls to keep out the storms.

Her queen believed in efficiency though, if they were to live with her, she would work.

Spores was alright with that, she didn’t want to be the beggar at the edge of their whole world.

She remembered the day she arrived. A moth fairy with soft brown speckled wings and little feather antennas that arched past her shoulders. She had sharp features and long face, cheekbones that were somewhere between scooped out glaciers and rising peak.

She wore a fine leather skirt and heavy shoulder pads that made her appear bigger than she already was, and the she tall enough as it was.

Spores felt a little antsy around her, the same kind of strange pressure. She wore a thin grass tiara around her brow.

Spores stumbled back quickly when she descended, a moth fairy with touches of sun below her eyes and nothing about that sounded good from Spores experience.

But the fairy watched her carefully, readily, she didn’t look ready to strike or gawk at her. Spores peered over her boulder anxiously. She still didn’t like this.

“Come out,” the moth fairy said in a bored tone, “It’s important.”  
  
Spores grit her teeth, they left her alone for weeks here, she could only assume the worst. The other fairy gestured at her weakly again anyway, “I swear, I’m not happy about this either. We can get it over with.”  
  
Spores didn’t like her tone either, she shook her head. She opens her mouth ever so slightly, “The queen said I am to be left alone.” She responds weakly and crouches further behind her boulder. She didn’t need any more fairy’s coming down from above to stare at her. Enough was enough.

The other fairy rolled her eyes, “I was sent by the queen.” She put her hand out, “I am Lymantria.” She flicked her gigantic speckled beige wings. “Fairy of the blood crown.”  
  
Spores stands up slowly and watches her with a wary eye, “The blood crown?”  
  
She sighed deeply, “I forget you don’t get to come up to the Haven.” Lymantria approaches with a straight back, “Crown? You know. Born, connected to the Queen’s blood.”  
  
Spores blinks a couple times and then stumbles backward, “A princess.”  
  
She folds her arms across her chest, “If that’s what you want to call it.”  
  
Spores opened and closed her mouth, she holds her hands to chest and looks up, “I am allowed down here.”  
  
“I know,” She didn’t look amused anymore, “And you take up our sun drink. Here.” She lifts up a little brown bag and Spores cocks her head to the side. “I have this for you.”

She tosses the bag at Spores feet and they have a long stare off before Spores finally kneels stiffly to open it up.

“I…seeds?” She stares at a handful of little webbed egg looking lumps.

She lifts her chin to study her, “Spores,” Lymantria puts her hands on her hips, “Wandering mushrooms and fungi.” She sniffs, “Delicacies. You should be honored to grow them.”  
  
Spores looked down at them, “How…?”  
  
She shrugs, unfurling her great wings, “You’ll know. Ground. Water. Watching them before they do anything.”  
  
Spores wrinkles her nose, “Do anything?”  
  
She starts to flap, looking back at the canopy above, “They wander.”  
  
Spores can only look back down at them dumbly and try to dig down deep inside herself to see if she somehow knew how to grow mushrooms. She blinks, this isn’t what she hoped for. She squares her shoulders and takes a deep breath and watches Lymantria leave.

—————-

There were three different fungi: one with wide red hats, a paler white hat, and a kind of iridescent moss she had yet to understand. Spores watched them carefully.

She slowly grows the the little plants, figuring out how to nourish the roots and give them enough sunlight, nutrients. She watches their little heads pop up above the dirt and slowly felt out how to push bits of time magic from her fingertips into their soft skin. They grew quickly after that.

They were also playful, careless, going where they please. And they didn’t stare.

She fashioned her own little brown cape out of foliage and honey when her clothes became threadbare, she fixed a little red hat on her head when the weather became colder. She watched her brood grow.

They didn’t walk at all at first, they never walked when she was watching in general. But that was when she was watching.

She slept in bouts and increments to make sure they didn’t exit The Haven boundaries, she built traps and walls to keep them from getting too far. She built a staff out of oak wood and shepherded her troop.

It wasn’t bad, they were good listeners and she gave them names and talked to them frequently. At first, she would get distant visitors who would watch her shephard the mushrooms and point when she poured a little of her brown sparkling magic to get their roots to steer a different direction. They giggled and pointed at her ragged cape.

However, the canopy fairies eventually grew bored of the spectacle of her, ‘The Decay Fairy,’ they moved on.

They stopped bothering, and she grew used to it. The only fairy that didn’t stop bothering her was her watcher, Lymantria, apparently assigned to her from her mother and made to deliver supplies.

It wasn’t pleasant at first. But then she kept coming.

“And I just can’t believe it,” Lymantria said as she pulled at her feathery antenna. “She led a practice match and didn’t even spar with the winner! What kind of engagement with her people does that show?”  
  
“Uh-huh,” Spores kept her eyes trained on her mushrooms, lying down on her stomach as Lymantria talked.

“And mother still won’t listen to reason. That everyone should be able to join the bouts for a chance,” she scoffs, “or at least join a part of the procession.”

  
Spores glanced at her, “You’ll live in the heart of the sun tree one day either way.” She says slowly, pointing her staff high in the air at the oak.

Lymantria shook her head, “And if I don’t? We’ll all fall apart if Appalla is allowed to get the throne. She won’t even prepare for a potential breach!”

Spores blinked and rolled onto her back, “There hasn’t been a breach in decades.”  
  
Lymantria folded her arms across her chest stubbornly, “That means we’re due for one.”  
  
Spores chuckles, “That sounds like you.”  
  
Lymantria gives a brief smile, “Well, things like that certainly got me in trouble. That’s how I got,” Lymantria paused, glancing at Spores, “Uh, things.”  
  
Spores snorts and stretches her arms, “That’s how it got stuck looking after me.”

Lymantria frowns and looks away, “They just don’t know.”  
  
Spores raised an eyebrow and smacked one of her growing mushrooms to stay in place, “I appreciate you always bringing me things Lya. Some other fairies might have stopped.”  
  
She threw her hands in the air, “They just don’t know!”

Spores look away, rubbing her nose roughly, “it’s…bad luck.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth.

“Oh please,” Lymantria blew a piece of hair out of her face, “I know you hate it way more than I do.”  
  
She looked away with a short shrug, “I like looking after my mushrooms. I’m used to it.”  
  
Lymantria shook her head and looked up, “None of it is fair. Mother won’t listen.”  
  
Spores reaches toward her, “Just…look out for everyone up there. They wouldn’t want me around anyway.” She gave a watery smile, Lymantria looked back at her fiercely.

“The times are changing.” Spores raised an eyebrow, “Old Grandmother Waters said there is salt on the southern wind.” Lymantria unfurled her large wings to position herself up.

Spores eyes her, “Is that bad?”  
  
Lya glanced back at her, features pinched, “Things will be different.” She focuses her eyes, “We need to listen.”  
  
Spores didn’t know what to make of that, but Lymantria’s time was up. She had duties of guard and nobility and Spores needed to watch her plants. It’s what she was named for. Among other things.

Her chest still squeezes when she looks up and watches Lya disappear.

She didn’t have much hope in the southern wind.

————-

The southern wind had salt in it.

Even Spores saw their bowed heads and whispered concerns from down below, other Sight Fairies were tasting it now. Bitter, dangerous.

A tremble in the leaves, a distant shadow overhead.

Things could only go well for so long, that’s what Lya always said, that if you don’t prepare for trouble it is sure to find you anyway.

Another troop of red mushrooms was born under Spores care, she gathered decayed leaves for them and told them stories of a squirrel that conquered a great acorn.

She shepherded her largest white mushroom away from the edge and followed her favorite one, Honey Break, over to a fresh pool of water that Lya left for her.

She was seeing less of Lya for that moment.

  
There was salt in the southern wind.

————–

They came in a shadow with maws as large as stars that swallow worlds (as the night fairie’s described), they came with no hunger, but something vengeful. Sharp as the winter chill.

At one point they were said to be fairie’s, good kind creatures of the mammals. They lived on the ground (as fungus fairie’s did Spores noted) and harmonized with the creatures there.

Fairies, like them. But, fairies with charges and steeds and something new lighted in their hearts, an understanding of control. They wanted not just communion with the mammals but use of them, to bend their will to their own purposes.

The pure heart of creation, the heart of all trees struck out, it’s children were not meant to twist the reins of power. And they changed.

Their wings turned to bone and blood and their mouth curved into a hardened beaks. The yellow light streaked across their backs like stains and their eyes grew hard and cruel. They took the shape of those that were bound to them, the owls of the fae.

But they were no longer fae, but not mammal either, their minds were left intact, their powers were left to claws and talons and only bitterness replaced their light touch. They were said to want to swallow the light of the trees whole and all it’s children. The queen of the fairies led a charge against them. Sil the Wise forced them out of the woods and into the distant lands.

But hunger is hard to staunch for so long, hard to keep out forever. The ravagers visited the fae’s sanctuary’s one by one, or at least, that was the bedtime stories they told the newborns to scare them into sleep.

But revenge comes in blood and tombs.

The Queendom quivered. There was no escaping when the large shade played across the leaves and stained the ground. Their first blitz reached out and plucked a robin fairy, a dawn fairy, and a red fire fairy right out of the tree tops.

Claws like outstretched blades of moonlight that tore through flesh with unrelenting ease.

They gobbled up the three fairies and the whole Haven shook in terror, and so they came.

Spores heard the screams and the cries and hid under her expansive mushroom, holding her staff close and screwing her eyes shut. Her mushrooms did not move at all as she huddled under them and she murmured to herself.

“I am death, I am death, I am death.” She almost prayed, begging for once to be the decay they always told her she was. The owls didn’t touch her.

She heard the screech between the unnerving calm air and she could sense her fungi leaning toward her, huddling. It felt like it lasted forever.

But it was only ten minutes, nightmares are sometimes lightning quick. It was fast and dirty and all Spores can do is look up helplessly at the clear sky above where clusters of fairies had once been.

She smelled a salt and sweet metallic taste in the air that made her stomach churn, a nasty queasiness as the fairies above hugged each other close.

They had come.

————

“It’s unbelievable!”

Spores was perched atop her largest mushroom, one she called Sal, and nodded. She adjusted her thick acorn helmet on her head and camouflage leaf cape. Though the ravagers did never swooped close to her.

Lymantria was pacing back and forth and throwing her hands up like she did, “they are going to have us all burn! Eaten! Dead!”

Spores watches her pace back and forth, a funny feeling still frozen in her stomach that hadn’t settled yet after three days of the attacks. There had been two more hits.

“We must be able to deflect them a little,” Spores mused out loud, “Apalla must have some sense of that.”  
  
Lymantria flickered her wicked eyes aside, “My mother and sister haven’t faced a threat in decades. A century almost. They,” Lymantria balled her fists up, “Ugh.”  
  
Spores looked up at the climbing oak tree and circle of trees that was their Haven. Doors were boarded up left and right.

“Mmm,” Spores hummed into the open air, “Was the order to hide?” She asked softly.

Lya shook, “Among other things.” She huffed, “We should be preparing the army is what we should do.”  
  
Spores cocked her head to the side, “they have talons and beaks and somehow can pass through our barriers.” She drums her fingers on the wide mushroom head, “There might just have to be a different way.”  
  
Lya set her jaw and looked up, “Our arrows must be able to pierce their chests. We’ve done it before.” She wrinkled her nose, “We are not weak. Even if my mother has made our fear apparent to them.”  
  
Lya looked ready for a fight, she turned angrily on her heels, Spores reached out her hand and grabbed onto the end of her silken cloak thoughtlessly, “Be careful.” She gulped and looked up, “Alright?”  
  
Lya’s eyes softened as she looked over her shoulder, her hand reached out, “Are you safe down here?”

Spores looked down at her feet and then back up with a stiff smile, “I’m decay, remember? They wouldn’t risk it.”  
  
Lya’s fingers ghosted over jaw, as if a caress, “Take care of yourself.” She looked back up to the lowering sun, “We need as few fools in this war as possible.”  
  
Spores blinked a couple times, a little in shock. She hadn’t heard people talk about her like that.

But Lya was already gone, her moth wings flapping with a heady strength. It seemed she was waging a war.

————

Since Spores emerged from her cocoon, since she reached out into the cool air and tried to grasp at new life, she had accepted on some level her queen would never see her again. And a queen was her people, Spores would never reach them.

Spores would be the distant spore that took root down below and a visitor you tolerate could never really be whole like the others. She was a loose fall leaf that they better yet forget.

However, battling for your life often changed all that. Many things were bound to change, there was salt on the southern breeze.

Spore remembered distinctly when she was awoken in the night, a rustling and then a the shadow of a head and shoulders popping up.

For a second she imagined sharp unforgiving swords of talons ripping through her home and forcing her to scramble back, but instead it was a curly redhead with long feathered antenna.

Lya was looked across from her, breathless, “Come with me.”  
  
Spores turns over and rubs the sleep out of her eyes, “What?” She tries to put her thoughts together and straighten her loose nightshirt- almost falling all the way down her shoulder. She tugs at it.

Lya was bouncing, “Come with me!” She put out her hand and Spores for a second is sure she is dreaming, she had dreams like this before. Spores knits her eyebrows together and she opens her mouth to speak, Lya is all energy, “I told you,” She says fiercely, “I need people by my side.”  
  
Spores swallowed dryly, “For what?” She wishes her voice wasn’t so thin and quivering.

Lya just tries to struggle through the window, “I am making one.” Her cheeks were flushed with exertion, “A proper volunteer army. I am not going to let us all live in fear and be picked off one by one.”  
  
Spores rubbed her eyes again, “But…” She looks around carefully and then whispered. “It’s forbidden.”  
  
“We’re training on the ground, they’ll barely see us,” Lya finally took her hand, “Be my second in command.” Spores froze, “I need someone I can trust.”  
  
Her eyes were wide and Spores had no idea what she meant by that. How she could mean it.

“Lya,” her voice croaked, “I will only bring-”  
  
“Death. Yes, that’s the point.” She tried to lift her, “You are smart and more capable than half of us. My mother can’t say no!”

Spores can’t really digest that, believe it. But she follows Lya to her feet. She would follow her no matter where her little golden feet trod, even if it went into the beast.

———————

They avoided her. She wasn’t sure what she expected, but after all this time she wasn’t altogether prepared for the bent heads and constant dribble of whispers in her direction.

They were back to averted eyes and dodging the very air she flew in. There was more than one war they felt like waging she supposed.

But Lya kept her by her side, they couldn’t poke and prod her like an attraction if Lya was having her throw a javelin through an apple. They couldn’t laugh at her when she struck a leaf to smithereens.

A few of them tried to practice swords on her mushrooms but she shooed them off easily, canopy fairie’s knew very little about how to survive on the ground. Spores had been battling off slugs and rodents for ages now.

  
They were given swords and arrows and flames and one expansive strategy: survive, survive, survive.

Spores could live with that. And sometimes they even called her by her name, sometimes they even hid behind her as the dark inky shadows on the ground reappeared.

They would survive.

Perhaps.

Three days passed without an attack, and on that fourth night one of the little water fairies waved her hand in the air. Spores had no idea what that meant.

“Come on,” The water fairy, Sweet Rain she thought, was gesturing to her, “It’s been enough of this. Come eat with us.”  
  
Spores blinked, and then blinked again, she had never been invited to eat with someone before. She hobbled to her feet and brought her thin stew over to the circle.

Some of the more distant fairie’s glare at her, but Sweet Rain and her friend move over and sit her down with them around the bonfire.

I can just keep my mouth shut, she thinks to herself. Maybe they can like me.

She falters into a little corner seat as far away from them as possible, Sweet Rait smiles at her.

“Come on, come on.” Sweet Rain nudges her closer to the others and the fire.  
  
Spores can only shuffle up somewhat and keep her mouth shut, a brown sparrow fairy’s mouth falls open next to Sweet Rain.

“Are you eating that?”

Spores looks up gradually, “I, uh, yes.” She flinches at herself.

Sweet Rain shook her head, “have some of ours too, we have more than enough.”  
  
A rainbow fairy and daisy fairy glare at Sweet Rain like she killed their mother plants, Sweet Rain just floats forward and gets a thick bowl of lemon stew.

Three or so other fairies gather closer to Spores.

The sparrow fairy blinks at her, “they call you Spores?”   
  
“Yes?” She ventures quickly.  
  
The sparrow fairy wrinkles her nose, “I never thought that was very nice.”  
  
“Oh,” Spores really doesn’t know what to say to that.

She beams and puts her hand out, “I’m Wicket and that’s Sweet Rain,” she announces cheerfully, “we’ve been meaning to meet you.”  
  
Spores looks down at her hand blankly, “I’m not supposed to…uh.” Spores mumbles to herself, almost unsure what to do with their bright faces. The mushrooms didn’t have faces.

“Nonsense!” Sweet Rain is back, “Lya has been bucking the rules for days now. That’s why we’re here.”

“And to kick feathery ass!” An inferno fairy that had inched a little closer pumped her fist in the air.

Sweet Rain laughs, “if they don’t hear you yelling from a mile away.”  
  
The inferno fairy, Castor, goes a little red, the crowd around her laughs. Spores blinks, they were laughing around her.

  
Castor and her two friends turn back to her, the lean in, “did you really kill a chipmunk with your bare hands?”  
  
Spores mouth just falls open, Sweet Rain steps forward and hands Spores the stew, “hush, we don’t want to freak her out.”  
  
“You’re so pretty,” Wicket’s mouth was open and Spores was taken back to whole other plane of existence.

A glade fairy with round, full cheeks laughs, “careful, you don’t want Lymantria hearing you say that Wicket.”  
  
Wicket shrugged, “I’m being friendly. She said it was time to get over ourselves. She’s included in that.”  
  
“Oh,” Spores looks back and forth between them, “You don’t have to be nice to me if Lya just ordered it.”

“Lya?” One of the Tulip fairies gives her a sly look, Spores eyes go a little wider.

  
“We were not ordered to,” Sweet Rain huffs and gestures for her to eat.

“Yeah!” Castor cheers again, “You totally cut through that entire tree branch earlier. Plus, you’re ground thing is metal as hell!”

Spores feels like she’s going to trip over her own tongue, “metal?”  
  
“I’d like to live on the ground.” The glade fairy says dreamily. “It’s almost romantic.”  
  
Spores frowned deeply, “it’s really not.”

Sweet Rain clapped her hands together, “eat, eat, there’s a lot of fairies here who want to talk.”  
  
She starts to eat her lemon stew, it was thicker and infused with more sun drops then she ever had before. Something hopeful grows in her chest and she tries to push it back down, this could only be temporary.

She begins to smile despite herself, the group of fairies begin to joke and plan and talk about the future and what a hardass Lya was. And they kept asking her questions, questions about the ground and her troop and archery techniques.

She tries not to talk too much but she’s almost euphoric by the time she reaches the bottom of her bowl. It was unreal.

“I like your red spots,” Wicket touched one of her little red patches by the end of the meal. “They must make you blend in.”  
  
Sweet Rain swatted at her hand, “don’t make her uncomfortable.”  
  
Spores shook her head, “Thank you.” She croaks and pushes her bowl away, “thank you so much.”  
  
“The queen is silly,” the glade fairy, Heather Light, declares, “I haven’t got poisoned once down here.” Her eyes flick to Spores and Spores tensed.  
  
“The queen’s the poison,” Castor grumbled, “I can’t wait for Lymantria to take over.”  
  
“Don’t say that!” One of the fairies from across the way said shrilly, glancing at Spores momentarily with with her lip raised, “the queen protecting us.” She shifts from side to side and looks at her lap, “we just have to deal with the owls for her.”  
  
The other fairies just shake their heads, they begin another round of Guess the Cup and Spores even joins.

Lya comes out once and pauses to smile at her, Spores can’t help but smile back. Her heart was starting to fill with something.

———-

Spores clutches the javelin in her hand and whipped it around, hitting the tree branches around her and slicing them in half.

“It’s about the momentum,” she says steadily, “they are going to be larger than us. So we’re going to have to be more clever, use more leverage.”  
  
Some of the other fairies nod, “what happens when we lose a weapon?” Heather Light asks with her hand in the air.

“We scream real loud,” someone else calls and they chuckle.

Spores grins, “Well, I know we don’t have much time. But we should be able to use our natural gifts if we could hone them a little.”  
  
The other fairies glance at each other, their natural abilities were not made for destruction. But the word survival also rings their ears.

“Finally,” Castor lights her hands up in sparks of flames, “finally!”

Tep, the glass fairy, rolls her eyes, “not all of us are made of flames or death you know.” She says pointedly.

Spores flinches slightly, “Bird Callers have a shriek.” She says slowly, “you can control water. Light, air,” she gestures around her, “We are not weak.”  
  
She sees Lya at the corner of the fray watching her, gazing at her with some unreadable expression. Spores smiles gently back.

Lya nods and steps forward, “We are not weak.” She says forcefully.  
  
Several fairies around Lya jump and push backward to give the Blood Crown fairy some room. “Of course!” One of the daisy fairies says shrilly.

Lya nods at them all individually, “You are doing well.” She says, “We’ve come along farther than I ever thought in such a short amount of time.” Spores can feel the crowd swell with pride, “We’ll need it.” She gestures, “go train. I need a word with my lieutenant.”

Spores straightens up at that, standing up tall at her mention. Lya clears them out and gestures for Spores to join her in her war hut next to Spores own house.

Lya’s expression remains neutral until they close the door behind them, then Lya pulls angrily at her own short red hair, “where are they?” She says with a huff.

Spores pats her shoulder, “their schedule is meant to be random. That’s how they unrival us.”  
  
Lya shakes her head, “I know, I know, but I don’t like this. It’s been too long.”  
  
Spores just hums, “It’ll give us more time,” Spores smiles up at her with her head bowed shyly, “more time for you to prepare us.”

Lya shifts her eyes to her, “they’re planning something.” Spores just nods back and Lya taps her chin, “and my mother is growing suspicious.”

Spores tilts her head, “She’s secluded up there though.”  
  
Lya turns around in a frantic circle, “she’s still barricaded herself in her throne room, yeah. But her spies have probably told her something is happening on the ground by now. I don’t think she buys my explanation.”

Spores steadies Lya’s shoulder and walks her over to the window to look out, “I’m sure they’ll let us fight the ravagers when they come. They’ll change their tune then.”  
  
Lya’s eyes flick over to her, “My mother is a proud woman.”  
  
Spores looks down at her hands and then off to the side, “I’m sure she…She’ll accept us after we prove ourselves.” She trails off softly.

Spores jumps when she feels a warm hand grab onto hers, Lya looks at her fiercely. “She has made many mistakes.”  
  
Spores lifts her head ever so slowly, she meets Lya’s wide green eyes, “I can’t agree.” She speaks lowly, “her blood made you.”  
  
Lya’s breath ghosts over her cheek, “I’ve made many mistakes.”

Spores heart pounds in her ears and she’s sure Lya can hear it, thumping painfully through her chest. She can’t look away, “not as many as you think.” She says softly.

Lya’s pupils are huge and she wets her lips, “Fungus fairies are said to be wise.” She dips her head down and lowers it to Spores level, “I trust you.”  
  
The world goes very still and quiet, all she can see is her princesses dilated pupils and feathery antenna reaching for her. She almost feels a touch of skin again skin.

“It comes!” A boom of voice breaks the air, shattering the soft touch and running down her spine like a tremor, “it comes!”

One of The Sight fairy’s roars from the top of the canopy, her visions being shared with the quaking community.

Spores shares one silent loaded look with Lya before they both turn toward the door, Spores reaches for her javelin.

——–

“I am death,” Spores mutters the phrase under her breath manically, the words an imprint on the back of her existence. “I am scourge.”

Castor glances at her with a questioning look but doesn’t say anything, they stand at the front line. Their eyes are trained on the sky, civilian homes being boarded up with everything they can find, the lights are off in the throne room.

“Steady,” Lya repeats from the back, riding her King Moth back and forth over her troops, “Steady!”  
  
Someone squeaks when the first ghost of a shadow materializes from up above.

“Oh no,” someone whispers, Sweet Rain it sounds like, “Oh no, oh no, oh no.”  
  
“Steady!”

Their collective breaths were held as a second shadow appears and the knew the swarm was on the horizon, silent as death and dread.

“Oh no.”

“It’s alright my love,” Wicket calms her mate.

Those are the last words Spores hears before it begins, starting with a bloodcurdling screech ricochet through the air, sharp talons descend from above followed by ugly black wings that throw gusts of wind across their faces.

The first one tears through the home of a Rainbow fairy and the wood shatters under it’s powerful shredding claws. They hear screams.

Lya puts her hand in the air and hovers in the front, she glances behind her.

  
“Fire!” The first round of arrows goes soaring through the air, half lit and the other half tipped with smoldering green poison.

They arch beautifully like a swan dive before digging themselves deep into the breast of the first owl fae, it releases an anguished wail, a look of surprise on its face.

  
Some of the arrows bounce off its touch wings, but this one wasn’t ready, it falls. Spores releases a breath, they had faced the first ones.

Two rainbow fairies peer over the edge at the small rag-tag army, relief flooding their features.

_Scrrrrrrrccchh_

The archers reload, three, no four, no, more than Spores can count descend with wrecking claws upon the canopy, smashing through homes and trying to grasp at fleeing fairies.

“Fire!” Lya roars.

The air smells like metallic rust and Spores lets loose a series of javelin throws as the owl fae bear closer.

  
“Ah!” She yells a battle cry and the ravagers start to bear down on the army. They start to release an endless barrage of arrows and spears.

Spores begins to lose track of time, sending sprays of attacks out, owls and fairies falling alike, she fights back to back with a series of comrades, covering herself with dust and blood.

Lya starts to guide them up into the air and toward the destroyed homes, pushing back the ravagers inch by inch.

“Hold!” The word became a constant ringing in their ears, “hold!”

Time was a mere an illusion, long and short and frozen all at once, her limbs ache and Spores knows there is a deep cut in her cheek from flying debris hitting her. She doesn’t flinch.

“Hold!”

They push forward.

“Hold!”

They raise slowly in the air, pushing the hoards back from the homes.

“Hold!”

They were winning, something leaps in Spores chest, the dark nightmares were being pushed back and back, she slew one in the chest and it retreats- it actually retreats.

  
“Yes!” She calls, “Yes! Forward.” They surge.

And then she hears the first worried and desperate cry from the very top of the canopy, “My queen!”

Castor was the first to yelp, Spores felt the inevitable and gripping pull all at once as well, an echo of ‘My Queen!’ rang through the haven in unison, they felt her. It was an intoxicating pull.

A giant and gruesome creature with dark wings and the body of screech owl had plowed its way through the doors of the throne room. Intent in its cruel eyes.

They break rank, Lya bellows at them to stay in line, keep the ravagers at bay for just a moment longer, but the throne room was being attacked. They swarm to their queens aid.

“My fairies!” She could hear Apalla and the queen yelling, “it’s here! It’s here! Come to me.” She was shrieking with the force of a thousand winds, Spores follows them, facing down a row of three more fae owls.

Spores stabs at them quickly and only lets herself wail for a moment when she sees Heather Light fall in the commotion, her lifeless body being wrecked across a wall and thrown across the edge.

“No!” She turns toward the giant screech owl.

“Protect me! Protect me!” The queen was more persistent, Fairies were throwing themselves thoughtlessly in the war path of the owl there. Spores runs toward her as well.

“I’m here for you!” She reaches out to her queen to pull her away to safety outside of the room.

The queen’s eyes were wide, “you disgusting creature!” She heaves away from her, “who else would bring death upon us now!”

Spores flinches and fumbles backward like she had been slapped, she sits dumbly on the floor as owl fae swarm and her head seems to clear like water being filtered.

“Mother!” Lya was at the door, Spores turns to her as she cries out, “the Haven will fall!” Her eyes were wide, “release them.”  
  
The queen reaches out her crooked hand in a grotesque claw, “They are here for me.” She wails, the screech owl was inching closer through the wiggling crowd of warm bodies, The Queen focuses on her daughter, “Protect me, usurper!”

Lya’s eyes glaze over, Spores gasps, “no.” She reaches forward uselessly, “Let her go!”

“You’ve never done anything good in your whole entire life usurper life,” The queen was huddling behind her chair and clawing toward Lya, the owl fae stomps forward, “do something with it.”  
  
“No!”

“Yes.” Lya throws herself forward, but so does Spores. She dives right toward her friend to stop Lya from jumping into the owls warpath.

“I won’t let you!” She roars and jumps into the claws of the dark creature, letting Lya fall to the ground and away. Spores gets one last glimpse of her and then the queen, she snarls, “I won’t let you. You wretched Queen.”  
  
Something breaks inside her, and then everything else does.

——-

_Death_

Spores does not remember the next moments, she doesn’t remember anything, a blank slate in her mind was devoid of anything. Beyond memory.

But she remembers the soft sting, the light aching touch that surged through her core and brought her consciousness into a gradual inhale of pain. Her nerves flare, thoughts slowly trickle back into her head.

Mushrooms feed off death they say, the decay fuels them.

Spores takes a new wheezing breath, warmth flooding her system and sound coming back to her in a chaotic mess one piece at a time, there was yelling.

“Lya…” She hisses with her first breath, and then her second. There was a shadow over her, she blinks a couple times. A paper and cream canopy, Spores rolls over and touches her mushroom, it’s feathery skin hovering over her as spores rained down from up above.

They had come for her, her wandering mushrooms had come for her.

Spores clears the tears from her eyes and felt at the closed gash in her chest and sides, she closes her eyes for one long moment, she had been saved.

She opens her eyes again now, amid everything, she knew what she had to do.

There was endless screaming, Spores claws her way to her feet and sees the body of the Queen, headless and bloody on the floor. Apalla was nowhere in sight, Lya was sitting next to the lifeless body of her mother, the once proud princess looking slack and empty.

Spores lifts her head, she turns and faces the rampaging screech owl, “I am the filter of the forest,” a mold, the ones she didn’t understand before, raises around her. Dark and floating like a storm in her wake. “You have overstayed your welcome.”  
  
The owl fae turns to her in a moment, it’s wide slit eyes steadying her, focused on the dark mold that followed her hand movements.

“I am the decay,” she grits through her teeth, “I am death.”

She floats the black mold closer to the beak of the sharp creature.  
  
The owl fae takes a step back

“Leave!” Spores pushes her clumps of black mold at their wings, gluing their feathers together and weighing them down. They screech, trying to tear the substance off of themselves, trying to free their feet and mouths. The mold only begins to grow.

_Scrreeee_

They turn and start to flee.

Spores shares one more look with the gigantic King of the Owl fae, he lets out one last roar, tearing at the mold and then swooping away with two pushes of his powerful wings. The ravagers retreat pursued by the troops of mold from a fungus fairy, a fungus fairy of all people.

She exhales.

Spores feels her muscles relax and a surge of pure weariness and ache wash over her system, her head goes dizzy and swims with bright popping lights.

“Oh,” she sways in place and then begins to wobble backward, she feels a pair of powerful hands grab at her sides before she falls. She looks up and speaks weakly, “Lya…”  
  
Lya looks down at her with wet eyes and something tender in her gaze, “My beautiful lieutenant.”

She gives a weary smile, “They ran.”

Lya shakes her head, “You did that. Oh Spores.”

She glances at the body of the queen, “I’m sorry.”  
  
“No,” Lya turns her around in her arms, “No.”

She bends her head down and Spores feels a delicate kiss pressed to her lips, firm and real and bloody against her lips. Every tension in her body escapes and she feels something grow whole inside of her.

Lya nuzzles her neck before placing her gently on the ground next to her mushrooms.  Lya stands tall and faces a swelling crowd of fairies, wandering back and forth, holding their wounds and crying. Large wet tears streaming down their faces for their queen.

They hung their heads and appeared lost amongst each other, Lya holds her arms out wide.

She draws a deep breath, “I am your Queen now!” She bellows and grabs their attention. She studies each of their faces as they turn to her. “My mother is dead. The ravagers are gone.”  
  
“The queen,” the murmur as they clutch their hands together and look to Lya, she nods at them.

“I am the queen.” She repeats and adjusts the metal helmet on her head. “We will rebuild.” She declares, holding their attention and drawing herself up to her full height, “We will be… different.”

Someone cheers from the back and a relieved chorus replies, ‘the ravagers retreated! They really did,’ The crowd surges with mixed emotions and Spores lifts herself up gradually to her elbows.  
  
Spores reaches up from the ground and takes Lya’s hand, “You did this.”  
  
“No,” Spores said and presses up for another kiss, “You will make a lovely queen.”

Lya holds her until she passes out from exhaustion, whispering to her gently, continuously that she had a place in the canopy- where she belonged. 


	4. Little Lights

 

The first one appeared on my 7th birthday, I had seen them before but hadn’t been allowed to join the procession until that year.

My hair was tied back in complex knots and I pulled on them regularly, trying to dislodge the tight coils and chew on the ends. It was a bad habit, my mom had been trying to cut the habit out of me for years (at nine she would threaten me with a spritz bottle).

I tugged on my hair coils and stared up the night sky as my mother fiddled with her high-tech camera, she had wanted to be a photographer at one point when she was younger. My father was still trying to find the ‘perfect’ patch of grass for us to settle on.

I held my mother’s skirts as I stared up at the approaching mass in the sky, dark and shimmering as it hefted across the sky like a rolling tangible storm. I was aware of the floating continents at that point, but it was still making me suck in my breath.

I sucked on my bottom lip instead of my hair and try to keep my eyes fixated on the glowing jagged shapes miles away. I had some eminent sense that if I blinked the whole thing would fall from the sky or disappear altogether.

My sister called me a fanciful girl at that age, but that was one of the nicest things she called me overall.

I kept my hand latched onto my mother’s skirt, her fingers ticking over the different filters on her camera and cursing softly, not loud enough for me to overhear, but I filled in the gaps. My sister was with her first boyfriend that year, somewhere high up, close enough she said to almost touch the bottom of it.

I doubted that. I didn’t believe anything could reach that high, my mouth falls open as the rumbling machine gently glides closer and closer. I had always known about floating continents, I see the lights first.

Honey yellow, glacial blue, cherry lipstick red, tangerine orange, all the crayon colors I could think of and more, they lit up one by one as hovering fairy lights against the dark. It was a dream of a dream and my eyes itched as I refused to look away.

The continent was poised against the last last tendrils of the setting sun and I could see buildings and trees outlined in a fantastical twisting design. And the lights.

My mother told me this happened every nine months or so, but I wasn’t listening, the fairy lights, lanterns, gently, slowly, were released from the darkness, lights carried on the breeze.

My eyes trace dipping patterns of glowing paper as they glide soundlessly out, cheering erupts around me as people whoop and clap for the release.

My eyes are drawn to a light pink one, pansy pink, kissed sunset pale pink, pink like my little fairy princess set.

“Mommy!” I say shrilly, hotly, “that one’s for me.”  
  
My mother sticks her bottom lip out, “Winnie-” She warns.

I release her skirts, “I have to go get it!”

“Winnie!” She grabs for the back of my green hood, “you’ll miss the paper airplanes, don’t you want to see-”  
  
They told me I was too young for a paper airplane anyway, I block out the rest of what she says, which was probably a deep groan as I dart into the cheering crowd.

Skirts and rustling coat tails flow around my small head and I ignore them, I had to keep my eyes on the light pink lantern, it was twisting gently in the sky with all the others

“Winnie!”

I duck my head under a low fence and feel the grass on my knees as I run away from the glow of the festival. “Come here little light!”

I almost scrape the palms of my hands as I scramble up and start sprinting up the side of the hill where only a smattering of people had perched, but my pink lantern was floating down slowly, slower than the others. Just gasping over the ground. I hear cries as people start to catch them.

“Here!” I reach my little arms in the air and flail them back and forth; the pink was far above my head. I run around in large circles as I try to guess where it is going to drop. I start to whine as it picks up and floats far above the others. Almost gone.

“Please,” I plead with it, “don’t be difficult.” That’s a phrase my grandma was always using, I reach up on my tiptoes. The pink lantern falls, my fingers curl around the sun panel on the very bottom

My entire face lights up, heart soaring, fingers clasping around the cool panel that held the lantern up. I tumble backward onto my backside as I grab the sides and fall back down to the earth

“Yes!” I can feel the grass staining the back of my light green fancy jacket. My heart is pounding in my chest, the lantern was pink poppies, sweet jam, I can see the little note inside.

“RELEASE!” I hear the cannon shot, I just catch the end of the ceremony, the little metro area launching thousands of colorful paper airplanes back at the floating cloud city. I hear cheering as people up there must be trying to catch them too.

I can’t stop smiling, “hello little light.” I reach inside, avoiding the tinted LED light bulb and curiously taking out a piece of paper.

The piece of paper wasn’t the point of the exercise for me, but I squint at it anyway. I knew some people sent things down with their light.

_Dear anyone,_

It was written with curling alternating colors, like a rainbow with each letter delicately formed and chosen. I was impressed.

_I hope you get this!!! My name is Iris, this is my lanturn :) It’s the same color as my play kit and I piked it out myself._

 

_I have 2 parents and 1 cat. He is a fat cat named Marshmellow and I wished he would have kittens, mommy says he can’t. I feel very sorry for him when he mews to go outside and we don’t let him outside_

_I would want to go outside if I was a cat- even if I couldn’t swim or pet dogs._

_I go to scool every day and want to be an artist or detektiv one day, I have a magnifying glass and 2 crimes already_

_One is who stole Stacy’s bike (not me) and the second is who nocked over the grass hut I built_

_Here some of the grass I found at the scene!_

_Pleese enjoy my lanturn, my mom says this is a very specile time of year and I really really want someone to find it and keep it like in the movies_

_PS- do you have a cat? Has it had kittens?_

_PSS- do you think breakfast cereal is okay to eat out of a big cup? I think it’s a weird but okay_

_PSSS- please be careful with my lite! I spend very time on it and I hope you love it too :D_

I held the note to my chest as I lie on my back and watch the last of the lanterns and paper airplanes fall to earth. The music is already increasing behind me as the rest of the night heats up with noise and clattering feat.

My dad wanted to show me how to do a cartwheel.

Instead I start to wonder how I was going to tell Iris that I got her lantern.

——

I was grounded for two weeks after I ran away during the festival and stained my nice clothes. I don’t mind being grounded because it just means I don’t go outside and can’t use the internet.

I can still use my toys and paint programs on my computer systems and mommy doesn’t take down my fort, so I’m okay. She doesn’t know why I like my fortress so much anyway. I didn’t stop crying for a week after they took it down the first time, so I can keep it in the corner of my room as long as I don’t try and bring it to the living room again.

I prefer having it in the living room since the couch holds the blankets up better, but the lamp in my room works pretty good anyway as long as no one runs into it.

I crawl inside the soft insides of my fort and I start writing back to Iris immediately.

_Dear Iris,_

I sit for a very long time as I excitedly go over what I want to tell her. I have my sister check all the spelling before I try and write it out sentence by sentence.

_I found your lamp!! It is the best color, I love pink, it’s my favorite color. How old are you? You sound like you’re about my age._  
  
That’s good, I don’t have a lot of kids my own age.

That wasn’t exactly true, but it was true enough. I didn’t consider myself part of the ‘losers’ but I knew people didn’t think I was very popular. I didn’t have a group, sometimes I really really wished I had ‘a group.’

I keep writing to Iris.

_I don’t have a cat, my mommy is allergic and sneezes a bunch when she gets near one. It’s bad. There aren’t too many pets down here, how many pets are there up there??_

_Do you really eat clouds up there? (my sister told me not to ask this but she doesn’t know more than me. She only gets normal points, I get lots of class points for my group (which is green banana))_

_Do you like living up there? Is it windy?_

_I sometimes eat cereal out of the big mugs when everyone forgets to do dishes and I don’t say anything since sometimes I’m the reason no one did dishes. I eat out of big mugs then, I don’t think it’s weird. Mine has scooby doo on it! Do you like scooby doo?_  
  
You like detective stuff, so I hope so.

_Tell me what happens with your crime!!! I sniffed the grass but couldn’t find any clues.  
_

_Please write back soon!_

_My name is Winifred, which isn’t a good name, and my mommy calls me Winnie and my uncle calls me Freddi for fun. But I want to be ‘Lumin’ since it means light and my favorite God (Apollo!!) is the light God. I like mythology and magic and shows about animals a whole lot, I like your light!!_

_I hope I hear from you soon._

_-Winnie_

My sister says it’s too long and rambling, but I don’t know what rambling exactly means so I just ignore her. She says I need to make real friends and I tell her that Iris is my friend.

I was eight that year.

I was going to find Iris.

———

I didn’t find Iris. It turned out there were a lot of Iris’s on the continent of Tritos, I told my mom I was going to write all of them and she told me I could try. If I did my homework first.

They want me to a lot more testing, a lot more than the other kids. I notice, I’m not sure if they want me to notice or not, I don’t think it’s a secret.

Ms. Kamau keeps me after school sometimes and has me take these quizzes that ask me things like which graphs make sense and what kind of money I would make. I like the part where I make stuff up like money, I’m little sick of telling them that their graphs suck though.

I don’t really want to be in the ‘separate’ class by myself, I had always been in the separate class and it was little jarring to be more separate than even the separate class.

It makes it hard to go to the library after school and look up the names of all the people in the cloud cities. There were a lot of cloud cities at this point, and even more Iris’s.

My dad asks me why I have a giant book on my lap, typing emails in from the directory and looking up the different names. I tell him that Iris needs to know, she needs to know someone found her lantern like she wanted.

I write a second letter in only pink pen.

_Dear Iris,_  
  
I get sad sometimes, do you get sad? Please tell me what your favorite music is. I like the ones where it’s quiet and you can’t always understand the words.

_It’s pretty dark tonight, another continent is coming overhead, but they aren’t our sister. That’s what my mother said, so there are no lanterns. Just night._  
  
It’s kind of sad because I can’t imagine what you’re up to, like waking up in the morning and eating cereal and putting your hair up. My mom makes me put my hair up now. Do you have uniforms up there in sky cities?

_Please tell me if you have any more mysteries to solve._

_From,_

_Winnie._

——-

It takes three years before I get in contact with Iris again, I had twelve letters at the time, some were better than others. I settle on three and a picture of our home and my family, I hoped she would like those (and she wasn’t a creep).

I got to put my hair up myself that year, the lantern festival was back, the year before that I had been sick during the night and the year before that I couldn’t find her lantern. I checked every pink one in the area, but maybe she changed colors.

I was ten.

Instead, this year I was going to send up the brightest airplane in the night sky, I had been working on the motor for months now. I was in the separate separate class of just sometimes just me, sometimes they let me join just the one separate class. But not always 

They let me work on whatever project I want in there, so I decided I wanted to create a tiny motor for my airplane, so it would stand out.

It says Iris in giant purple letters on top, the paper itself is a vibrant pink, just the same hue as hers. I know on some level I should be ‘moving on’ as my sister insisted, but some things are worth seeing to the end. That’s what my dad said, my mom just nodded at him. They were getting a stipend now to have me do the extra classes.

They always want little scientists, that’s who made the floating continents in the first place and solved overpopulation and the poison in the dirt. Some of the dirt is poisoned but the dirt up there isn’t now, so it solved a couple problems.

I’m not sure how I feel about all the science, but I feel like I can warm up to all the numbers when they leave me alone with them. They’re simple, like a game I can solve. This was another problem I could solve.

The motor came out of that, numbers and drawings and a puzzle I can solve. I tell Iris all this in my third letter, that I still like my classes but I wish they let me do more stories about Apollo. I send her one of my short stories about him and Helios, they both want to ride the sun across the sky but can’t. I ask her about Marshmallow and what she did all day up there.

I make sure to put a streamer on the back of my airplane, everyone loved the ones with streamers.

I make it to the festival early and avoid anyone trying to get my attention and ask me when I was going to take the PISA and get placed. I told them I didn’t want to do either, The Qualifier could wait.

I find a spot on the grass behind my older sister and her new boyfriend as we stare up at the sky. Titros rolls through the sky, the hover panels reflect off the ground and glow softly, the lights of the city are turned off one by one.

“They do that for us,” Bee’s boyfriend says sweetly and tucks my sister’s hair behind her ear. “They want us to see the lights.”  
  
I try not to look down at my sister and her boyfriend, my face is already hot from seeing my sister even giggle at one of his dumb jokes. At least this boy is sweet.

My mom is taking pictures again, standing at the very top of a craggy peak, we’re waving at her as she stands with a giant smile on her face. I loved seeing her like that.

I wave until my arm is tired and she still doesn’t see me, that was okay, Titros is almost at our doorstep, I hold my breath as the lantern lights are turned on one by one.

“Here it comes!” I sing over the noise and my sister glances over her shoulder with pursed lips at me, she was doing that a lot more now, pursed lips like a coin purse locking. I almost miss the yelling.

“Are you going to catch another one this year Winnie?” Chege asks me politely.

I just nod fervently, “I’ll try.”  
  
The lights come down like falling stars one by one, little tear drops from the darkness, slowly at first until they were a cascade of color and light. People down below are wagging their hands above them frantically as they try to catch a good luck lantern.

Most of them had special patterns and little words of encouragement and phrases, many had letters within. Some letters were greetings or wishes and secrets they couldn’t tell anyone else or even class assignments they wanted to get rid of. Some unlucky person sometimes got a prank lantern, but I preferred not to think about those- the fake ones.

I try to survey the sky for pink ones, but my hopes were a little down, there was a high chance she would switch patterns by now. She didn’t even know I existed in the first place, my heart sinks at that thought and I bite my lip.

I still liked to chew on things, but it’s mostly gum and toothpicks now, my sister assures me neither of those things are cool.

I sit a little numbly as people reach and reach toward the lanterns and catch them in a flurry of limbs and laughter, cheering. I watch as Chege jogs purposefully to bright red one, a heart in the very center, my sister squeals as he presents the heart-lantern to her. I have to look away again.

I watch as the lanterns dangle and dip, this isn’t what I was waiting for though, I hold my breath again as I hear the second little jingle of silver noise, a blast. Windchimes and a cannon release.

“There it goes!” I jump to my feet to watch as my sister was busy embracing her boyfriend, I run to get the best view as the blast fills the air. The stream of little paper planes arches just high enough to reach the floating continent, more whooping follows.

I run, chasing the arch as long as a snaking river, I spot the white of my streamer just in time: Iris! It says, Iris!

I can only pray she sees it, the people are just waving outlines above us, wiggling stick figures with one voice and one gasping mob. I couldn’t even imagine what Iris looked like, what she saw in the morning, what she thought about when she went to bed.

I watch as outstretched fingers I can’t see start to catch the little planes one by one.

_Catch it._

I pray to something indistinct and nameless, something that must make the lanterns float in the first place.

_Please catch it._

I chase the planes until I am breathless and sweating out of every pour, my chest heaves try to see something that isn’t there. I imagine her ripping her airplane open to see my letters snugly placed there, I imagine she is relieved- someone had got her lantern all that time ago.

I pray.

—-

I am eleven, I get the first best surprise I could ever wish for. An IM.

The tests are coming fast and furious now, for the first time I am struggling in school and wish I was outside doing anything else.

My sister is listening to happy music and my mom is developing more photos, she got one of the festival where the lights were reflecting off a toddler’s cheek as they shrieked at their first Lantern Celebration. I don’t know what she sees in it, but she keeps looking.

My father is trying to get a hot tub for the backyard, it’s a very long process that I think it taking more time than strictly necessary. The hot tub was being bought from my stipends.

They aren’t talking to me like they used to, I wished terribly to talk to somebody but I feel like my tongue is made of moonrock even when I’m around the other kids. There was too much competition, too many points and tally’s and names written in line on the board.

My name is always at the top.

I close my eyes every night and try to think about what Iris is doing, what I tell her if we ever talk. I might lie a little bit, I won’t tell her my ranking.

It’s a nice fantasy.

That’s why I almost leap out of my skin when I see a new IM on the family computer locked into the living room wall. It pings brightly with little white notification in the corner and I pass in front of it before I head off to school.

I assume it’s for my sister, for some assignment from a classmate or some friend that wants to go to the mall. Maybe a boy she turned away.

The day goes by like every other day: they let me do independent study for an hour, always building something. I like building things but the joy of it kind of soured after my motor didn’t seem to make a difference last festival.

I have no idea if I actually did anything or not.

I poke and prod at the electronic bits of a cube that can tell you the weather at any place in the world. It was pretty as it was superfluous.

I see another ping on my handheld phone at school.

I blink a couple times at that, a family IM was one thing, I blink again, but this meant it was for me. I sit up straight in my chair and make sure no one is paying attention to me. Ash seems to be consumed in her robotics project and the teacher is helping Tumanai.

I quickly poked at the ping to see where the message was from, my eyes go wide. IW. IW from international satellite coordinated in the middle of the Pacific.

My heart leaps into my throat, that had to be a floating continent. It had to be her.

I thrust my hand in the air.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” I almost shout it at the top of my lungs, the class looks at me but I stopped caring what I thought after the day they threw all my pencils out the window on SAT day last year.

My teacher adjusts her glasses, “What’s that Miss Otiena?”  
  
I scrunch my nose up, “I need to go home.”  
  
“You just said bathroom,” Ash hisses at me, I make a face at her.

“I feel awful.” I slump down on my desk, my teacher adjusts her glasses again.

Brief haggling follows, but I had never asked to be excused before, never asked for any favors. She had no choice but to believe me, she didn’t even bother calling my parents, I was eleven now. And separate.

I run home with my pulse throbbing in my wrist and eyes wide, it could be a false call, it could be a prank, it could be that I had finally lost it.

I run home and put up a pile of blankets between the chair and the couch. An impromptu fort.

The little light glows in my face, I wipe my sweaty palms down, my finger trembles as I push down on the answer button.

A message dings up immediately.

“Hello!” My computer offers to read it out loud for me, I decline. “This is Iris.”  
  
I close the program immediately, taking deep heaving breaths.

“She’s here,” I bury my smiling face in my hand, “She’s here, she’s here!” I couldn’t help it, I had been waiting. Iris. Iris Wegener it said.

I bite my lip and wish I had something to chew through, I had her name, her whole name. And she knew I was someone.

I almost start to dance, she had gotten my plane! The world is somehow bright and larger than it ever had been before.

It takes several more minutes before I can even think about opening the IM again. My whole body was tensing, I remember about reading an article about expectations. Some part of me hadn’t thought this would ever work.

What would I fantasize about after this? What if I made it bad? 

I take deep rattling breaths, I had worked for this. I couldn’t keep Iris waiting, not anymore. I open her messages again.

IW: hello Winnie!

There were less exclamations points now.

IW: I’m sorry it took me so long to respond, I had to go through a couple of bargaining chips to get my parents to believe this is real.

IW: but… it feels real.

IW: you were seven when you got my lantern? That’s so embarrassing, I barely remember what I wrote. But… thank you. I was pretty excited when I saw an entire plane with my name on it. I almost lost it!

IW: I don’t know what I’m writing, I’m sorry.

IW: anyway, my name is Iris Wegener. I’m thirteen this week :), Marshmallow passed when I was nine sadly :(, I like horses though I’ve never seen one. I don’t like Game Shows since they seem so fake, I don’t really want to be a detective now.

IW: I’m sorry you feel sad sometimes.

My mouth is fully open now, Iris had responded. Iris had responded a lot, she was almost my age. She liked horses, she didn’t game shows! She was a real person, not something I just made up.

I close my computer and lie on my back, I trace the lines I remember of Tritos with my fingers on the bedsheet above my head. The outline of the continent stands out in my mind’s eye.

“Iris,” I mouth the word. I don’t know what to say back.

—-

I don’t know to say back, I figure it would come to me, so I sleep on it. But it doesn’t come, not the next day or the day after that.

Iris keeps messaging me.

IW: hey, I’m sorry if I said anything weird

IW: I hope I got the right number, maybe you lost your phone or your parents took it when they ground you :(

IW: that sometimes happens to me, my mom calls me a troublemaker. I’m locked up in my room right now, I don’t know what her problem is >:(

IW: I don’t feel like a troublemaker, but it’s always this or that, detention for talking in class, detention for running in the halls, detention for writing my essay with The Truth

IW: I mean, everyone knows the The Fifth War was started by a systematic flaws of any era built on blood and exploitation

IW: It’s not news!

IW: anyway… I’m sorry if I said anything to offend you

IW: I think

IW: I think the plane is the sweetest thing that’s ever happened to me.

That was the first day, I read it over breaks, over dinner, smiling it down on my lap as my father tries to ask me about my studies and my sister rolls her eyes. I read it before bed, first once, and then what felt like twenty times.

I liked Iris Wegener.

I need to say something cool to her.

IW: Day three!

IW: I’m still freaking grounded, it sucks so hard

IW: do you ever get grounded? I hope you are right now

IW: oh dang, that sounds bad, I just mean I hope you message me, the computer says this is the right address

IW: who do you think was the most handsome member of the Imperialist Russian dynasty? I’m doing a project

IW: the headline is ‘Hottie or Romin-notty?’ It’s a thinkpiece

I didn’t get any more messages until the next day.

IW: I got double grounded!! My mother must not agree that Ivan the Terrible was a notty

IW: This is probably why you aren’t IMing back lol

My heart fell at that, I needed to say something. I need something, I need to tell her that I think she’s funny and that I think we’d have fun if we went to school together. My head falls, I wished so bad for a moment we went to school together.

My thoughts go blank as I try to make the first move, to say anything. It doesn’t come to me that whole week.

Iris keeps going.

IW: here’s a picture of a dog:  
[FILE PICTURE]

IW: does this make me normal? I honestly don’t want you to think I’m that weird

IW: here’s a list of my favorite members of V-W in order of best hair to worst personality:

Iris was bored and interesting, and I was interested and boring. I couldn’t figure out when any of these lines could be intersected.

It would be three months until the next Festival.

Iris kept writing.

—-

Iris liked boy bands, she owned 27 arm bands, she wrote papers that made her teachers angry, she wanted to study zoology sometimes, and sometimes she wants to be a bakery chef.

She was in the normal class.

She hated asparagus and loved salty things ranging from fried chips to plain peanuts out of a jar. She loved the color grey now, the type that was almost silver, she wanted to paint her room that color and carpets, but her mom wouldn’t let her.

She didn’t have any siblings, but her friend Holly was almost there she argued.

Her parents circled her like a vulture sniffing for problems.

It was a month before the next festival, I was working harder than I ever worked before. I had my new project. Iris was telling me something else now.

It was 2 in the morning, I was still looking at phone, going over numbers in my head, going over the test scores. My parents would get more stipends the higher I reached. And then the next step, The Qualifier.

I didn’t want to think about The Qualifier.

My phone pinged, I turn my phone over as quickly as I can.

IW: sometimes I feel like nothing I do is good enough for her

IW: I couldn’t buy birthday flowers for her, she’s ‘allergic’

IW: it doesn’t matter if I try

IW: none of it makes her happy, do you ever worry about that Winnie?  
IW: that you’ll never be good enough

IW: Winnie?

I hold the phone close to my chest and imagine the next words I would write back if I could.

WO: I feel that sometimes Iris, I think it’s normal.  
WO: I think you’re the best thing that’s happened to me, please don’t think that of yourself. You don’t have to be good enough

WO: everything about you

WO: is good

I wrap my fingers around the little box, right up against my thumping heart, and fall asleep like that.

—–

Iris goes slightly quiet the couple days before the festival, I try not to let it bother me, I was busy enough as it was. This had to be perfect.

I had all my responses from the last couple months saved up.

The first was an apology, it was on flower paper and a little crying laughing face.

The paper reads briefly:

Hey Iris,

I wanted to say something cool! But I wait too long and the pressure kept building up! I’m so sorry. I know this isn’t cool either.

-Winnie

If Iris stopped messaging me after that then that’s how it would be, but I had to clear the air. I had to try again.

I’m sweating in the dead of summer as our sister continent came sweeping across the horizon, bleeding into the night and showing itself just as the sun went down. My mouth is dry and tasteless, I would be fourteen that year.

It felt so strangely routine compared to the wonder of being seven and struggling for the single light in the sky. It had felt like it had to happen at the time, that it was always going to, but here I was, a mess in all regards. Not messaging back.

I am in the launch prep room right up to the final bell, tinkering, adjusting, trying to figure out what to really say.

There are five letters stuffed into the fat airplane this time, I hope they stay fixed in there after everything. My jaw hurts from clenching when I go to the Festival Master and give her my plane, she examines it skeptically for a moment.

The little motor and basket on it’s back are both off model, she shrugs anyway, almost smiling in a knowing way. She places my plane right next to all the others.

I exhale.

My phone trembles in my hand, waiting. The lanterns had already fallen, only the planes were left. I run outside and I’m typing as fast as I can, before my thoughts catch up to me.

WO: Iris, look up!

I don’t know where I get the courage, but my fingers are flying over the letters.

WO: Please look up!

The blast of air tickles my neck, a twinkle of wind chimes fills the air as thousands of little airplanes are pushed high into the sky. Shot toward the continent and waiting crowds.

My plane is slightly higher than the others, I see the mechanisms clicking in my mind’s eye, igniting the tails of the string. Lighting up the little plane as it let out the series of purple sparks. The sparks fizzle and boom, twisting into large colorful letters.

**Iris!**

It wrote the letters in curling, carving sparkles that filled the sky. I wished I had more to say but the white and glowing Iris hangs in the air with a rainbow of color and series of pops.

I exhale again, hoping the rest of the plane makes it there after the fireworks were released. I hope she looked up.

I take a moment to lie down and feel the crowds churning around me, my mother was nowhere to be seen, my father was putting together our new hover car somewhere. My sister was eating ice cream with her friends over her friend’s latest breakup.

I was lying on my back, looking up, panting, phone clutched in my fingers as I wait.

I told myself I didn’t care if she messages back after that, but my phone hangs empty and quite next to me. I feel pinpricks on the edges of my eyes, I strangle the feeling as it rises up.

She had every right to be mad, I hold the phone harder. I tell myself she never has to talk to me again, my cheeks are flushed and wet.

_Ping_

I let the stress tears roll out before wiping at them, before rolling over frantically to open up the IM.

IW: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh

IW: I DIDN’T KNOW YOU GOT MY MESSAGES

IW: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh

I can’t stop smiling.

WO: don’t worry about it

WO: hi my name is Winifred Otiena, I am almost fourteen, I still like the color pink and think that your detective business would have been wonderful

WO: I’ve seen a horse, but think they’re little too big

WO: and thank you

WO: thank you so much for messaging me

IW: you’ve been reading this crap??

WO: please don’t stop

WO: I’m not great with words but I liked yours

IW: you’re great with fireworks apparently tho!! :D

WO: I wanted to say something great back, I knew I had to say something great

IW: Well…hi

WO: hello

We started to talk back and forth, at last. It was touch and go at first, I still had to hide my face sometimes and Iris filled the gaps with her chatter.

It was okay. In fact, Winnie grinned, it was great.

——-

I was fifteen, I was messaging a girl on a floating island. The girl on the floating island was messaging back.

She sent me a lantern that year with wings on it, wings and floating clouds around it. It held all of the Odyssey released in bits of scrap paper into the air as it descended. I caught it and took a selfie with the clouds and Apollo lantern.

We talk for the whole night.

——-

I am sixteen and I am messaging Iris every night, Iris is on her third suspension and I was spending less and less time at home. We had a new home, we celebrated my sister leaving for college.

I missed her terribly.

My parents are just glad she didn’t stay for her boyfriend Chege that she was on-again-off-again for all these years.

I am more grateful than ever for someone to talk to.

Iris sends me lantern with moving kittens on the side and chocolates that taste like bourbon and sugar. She says she wants to taste real bourbon one day and thinks I look like I’d make a cute kitten. I say we all would.

I go through my second growth spurt and am still barely reaching 5’4.

I send Iris an airplane with flowers from the ground, iris’s and poppies. She says there aren’t poppies up there.

The Qualifier preppers are at my door almost every night. I gulp and sometimes shake my head, I had more questions than answers.

——

I am seventeen, the air is thick with summer.

Iris sent me a lantern that is red and silk, an outside made of slick flowery material and smells like her perfume. I blush and send her a plane with a bright pink ribbon on top. I tell her to wear it.

I am tired all the time, numbers and figures float through my head.

I keep getting the same message from her.

IW: where do you go after you ‘qualify’ ?

WO: I don’t know

IW: find out!

WO: that’s classified, the WG only shows you the paycheck

IW: :/

What do you qualify for she asked.

——-

I am eighteen.

I feel the age creeping up on me like a battered old woman about to curse my soul and suck it out of my body with a straw. That’s an image Iris suggests to me, she is already nineteen, she’s got a temporary job at a shoe store.

I don’t know what to tell her, she sends me snaps of her DnD games and I show her my tired puffy face.

I took the test, it took me five hours and my hand almost blistering into nervous hives as I finish. I wished I had failed.

The conversation from before ringing through my ears

IW: botch the test

WO: I can’t, they’ll know, they already know what I can do

IW: … don’t go.

WO: you can’t say that

IW: don’t go! You don’t know where they’re taking you

WO: humanities brightest, they’re gathering us

WO: it’s how we got the floating cities… the World Government, everything

IW: THey don’t need you!!! Not all of you

WO: :

IW: for me

I start shaking, did I really want to go? My parents barely spoke in the sprawling house we were provided, my sister was trying not to fail out gracefully from of one of the top schools in the country (she was doing her best). I had nightmares of hands and timers every night.

For her.

I start sneaking into my old school again, into the old building room.

I would solve all of humanity’s problems, somewhere I didn’t know. Somewhere they didn’t let people come back from.

She sends me the article.

IW: READ. THIS.

[LINK RECEIVED]

IW: they did this on purpose, they do it all on purpose

I’m not sure I want to know, I click on it anyway, stomach sinking.

_Our Smartest Children: Isolated, for a Reason?_

_Does competition and strategic pushing help young minds bloom? One investigation says that the next crisis will be averted through grooming the next generation._

_But at what cost?  
_

_Teachers are said to be taught to pick out the brightest and set the rest of-_

I close the article at that, I had seen enough. I go back to my workshop, I start building, I start bleeding my fingers on nuts and bolts. It starts to look like something from a fairy tale.

I break into our hover car and take out the resisters.

I borrow the reflectors from my neighbor’s tool house, the boards they used on the continents, to reflect. To blend in.

I stop going to class, I had already qualified.

The days tick by like maple syrup, dripping and slow. Sticky.

Iris facetimes me. Her face is round and bright and dark as the sister earth that left our soil all those years ago from the mountain.

I pet it slowly and she grins back at me, “so,” she makes a hiccup of noise, “where is my postcard from earth?”  
  
I smile back, “wait for it.”  
  
I’m almost done.

——-

The night beats on my brow like a violent slap, making me shake. I didn’t know if they were watching, maybe they’ll think I’m going to fail anyway.

I knew the reflectors would only last a couple minutes, I knew the hover material may barely hold me up. I worried she might not want to see me anymore after the first day passes.

I knew I would miss my parents, but I wouldn’t miss the tests and the headache and the burden. There were other ways to save humanity.

I perch on the edge of the gulch where it looks out on the planes. Where they had scooped out the earth, purified it, made it wholesome and able to plant trees again. Then the made it float, build, grow.

Trees were starting here again now too, but they came from the floating cities first.

I reach up and close my eyes, breathing in deeply as the shallow breeze licks my neck. It felt forever ago I stood there and chased a small pink lantern.

I shake, my eyes open just as the first little colors of glowing light come softly floating down from Titros.

I engage the thrusters of my machine, clenching around my shoulders and humming against my spine.

“Iris,” I try to make her out in the crowd on the land above, I can’t. “Iris.”  
  
I pray again, my shoulders tensing as my feet lightly, slowly, stop bearing my weight, I feel a smile grow across my mouth as I begin to ease off the ground. The motor I had been developing since I was nine pressed against my back, I took the next leap.

My hover wings hold me up, I go hurdling toward Titros, to the dirt and the earth and away from the eyes of the World Government. Titros was its own.

I reach my hands out, temples pounding, a blur of light and sound as I become a weightless leaf in the wind, I rise.

“Iris!” My voice is hoarse and almost gone, I’m afraid I will be shot down. That I will be chased and punished and told I have failed them. All of them.

I see the edge of the continent like a guillotine’s blade, I reach for the very bottom of the first panel, “please.”  
  
I gasp and I hear the voices from below for the first time.

“Who is that?”  
  
“What is she doing…”  
  
“What’s that on her back?”  
  
“She’s going to fall!”  
  
The ignition stutters, a coughing choking sound that sparked fear deep in my gut. A sputter comes from my home-made wings and the world is popping and whirring all around me. The air rushes through my ears, through my hair, I gape. No.

My fingers grasp at nothing and I begin to fall.  
  
“Winnie!” A hand is surging toward me, wrapping around my wrist, pulling me.

My face splits into a smile, heat surges throughout my whole body from where she touched me. “There you are.”

I don’t know who says it, I am pulled up into Titros, a hole in the sky that sucked me in as she yanked on my hands. She wraps around me like a light and I fall into the depths of the continent, with her.

The voices are still calling out, the hatch closes behind us and we collide in the way universe’s come together. It steals my breath away and chases every thought I ever had away.

“You made it,” she laughs against me, “took you long enough.”  
  
All I could do is nod, “I suppose I couldn’t stay away.”  
  
She shakes her head, we kiss for the first time in the last moment. I hold her close and my whole body feels light, powerful.

We watch the last of the lanterns fall and she squeezes my hand, “This is my favorite one.”  
  
We come together again.


	5. Flower Crown

The first time it happened she was in bed, the wet nurse, Gloria, had pulled the blankets all the way up to her chin and patted the top of her chestnut head. Tiana could just see the sky from her window, it was a moonless night with a red star far in the distance.

She doesn’t remember her mom coming in, she just remembers her hovering over her with a soft croon to her voice. She tucked the blankets in around her even though Gloria had already done that, and then stroked the top of her head.

She smiled up at her mom and reached up for her, opening and closing her chubby hands. “Oh darling.” Her mother smiled sweetly down.

Maybe she forgot, maybe they both forgot.

Her long hair tickled her cheeks and she bends down to kiss her face. Then a twisting and a strange tingling feeling sprouted from Tiana’s cheek, a numbness that spread all the way from her nose to her ear. Her mouth fell open and the twisting feeling extended outside of herself.

Her eyes go wide and she reaches up to her cheek, her mother’s eyes were just as large, “No,” she swatted Tiana’s hand down, “don’t touch it.” There was a high-pitched strain in her voice.

“Mama,” she felt a strange stem and leaves, leaves and soft petals coming out of her face. “Mama!”

Her eyes started to fill with hot tears, the numbness was already starting to fade but there was a bright yellow flower sprouting from her cheek like a house plant. “Sshh,” her mother strokes her other cheek, her eyes were shining too. “It will be alright.”

She started to sniffle and cry as she tried to reach for her mother again, her mom hesitates for a moment, but just a moment.   
  
She picked her up and pet her hair, “it’ll be alright.”  
  
The chrysanthemum fell away as quickly as it sprouted, softly falling in a dry bunch on her lap. Her breath hiccupped and she wiped at her face.

A cut flower was on her knees.

———

It happened again when she was six, three years after the first incident and the first rule of Tiana’s life: no kisses. No pecks, no motherly embraces.

She accepted this quietly within herself and tried to move on. It was the first day of introducing her to riding after all, introducing her to her pony.

A little sandy animal named Buttercup, Buttercup was specifically bred for her and grew up right next to her in the castle fields. Tiana was bouncing up and down with excitement when they told her she needed to start learning to ride.

“Mama,” she called up, “Am I gonna jump? I want to jump like in the fair.”  
  
Her mother chuckled, “maybe one day.” She boops her nose, “try staying on his back first.”  
  
Tiana sniffs, “Don’t even worry.” She skips, “Buttercup is for me, right? He’d never let me fall.”  
  
Her mom sighs, “just be careful darling.” She takes her to the door of the castle, “and listen to what Henry says, he’s the teacher here.”  
  
Tiana nods absently and goes to run to the horse stables; she didn’t end up tumbling off that day. But it was a lot bumpier than she expected. Henry stayed with her at first, holding in place on the pony until she insisted to try on her own.

Henry agreed to a very slow walk.

“Henry!” She called a couple times, “how do I get her to turn?”  
  
“Pull on the bit,” he called from the sidelines, gently guiding the pony with a leash as well, “whatever direction you want.”  
  
She yanks right, Buttercup whinnies, “Gently, princess, gently!”

She pulls more gently and has Buttercup turn, she squeals when he does. Practice is slow and she tries to be soft, thorough.

“I’m doing it!” She calls as she manages to turn the horse in a proper circle, “I’m doing it!”

“Lovely princess!” He waves at her, Henry was a Floyd who lived just outside the castle with his family, they all served the royals and had a nice smile. Tiana liked the niceness. He guides the pony gently in, “Come back now.”  
  
She reluctantly walks the pony in, “I’m going to jump. Like they do at the fair.” She proclaimed.

He laughs, “I’m sure you will.” He nods, “you’ll have all the knights following you in no time.”  
  
She grins widely, feeling herself puff up a little bit. “You’ll have to be my first one.”  
  
She puts her hand out, “Of course!” He cheers and takes her little hand, “though you’ll have to accept a sad horse training knight.”  
  
She laughs lightly, “Henry, you’re my favorite knight. No question.”

He smiles, “my lady.”  
  
Her kisses her knuckles, just the way knights do before they joist or try a trick with the Queen’s permission.

Tiana giggles for a moment. And then it happened. The numbness spreads before she even feels the playful gesture.

Her face goes pale, something flips inside her and a static comes out of her hand like she hit her funny bone. “Henry?” She asks shrilly.

His eyes go wide and he jumps backward, a bushy foliage sprouted from her right hand, thick and stretching out quickly. Tiana falls backward, trying to stop the striking growth. “Ah!”

“Princess?” It was a questioned, a trembling question.

“Henry!” Yellow flowers spring open, tiny yellow flowers that covered hand. “Mama!” She calls out just as she rears back from the growth, unbalancing herself and falling backward off the horse.

Tiana clutches at her head as she lies surrounded by wilting petals.

———

There was a strict rule about kissing the princess: don’t.

The queen decided her interaction with boys was cut off, the palace stable boys were dismissed. Tiana was told one thing, clearly and strongly: the Kingdom couldn’t know the princess was cursed. She didn’t understand at the time, but she didn’t want plants sprouting out of her skin either.

She didn’t want the numbness or the fear, the look in her mama’s eyes when she found her. She let all the kitchen boys be dismissed, and she tried to forget.

But there’s only so many things you can account for, she almost twelve when it happened again.

  
She sitting in the west hallways, holding crickets in her hands, Mary sometimes met her here to create little walls and race the fastest ones. Mary was late. Tiana scuffed her shoes on the stone floor and frowned deeply.

She squinted at the sky and counted down.

Gloria would only snore for so long before she came bristling and probing through the halls for her, telling Tiana her tutor had arrived. That her lessons were waiting, that she was late.

“Mary!” She calls through the halls. The cricket twitched in her right hand and she tries to adjust her fingers around it. “Ugh.”  
  
She’s thinking of turning around and trumping down to the pantries when she hears heavy breathing coming around the corner, “I’m here! I’m here!”

Tiana turns quickly faces the raven-headed girl as she waved at her from the far end of the hall.

“About time!” Tiana puffed her cheeks out, “Frederick will be in soon for my numbers.”  
  
Mary blew loose hair out of her eyes, “mama was telling me I had to finish scrubbing the big pots.” Tiana glanced at Mary’s red raw hands and she cocked her head to the side. Mary’s mom was a scullery maid and Mary was set up to take over the post eventually too.

“How long does that take?” She sees a little wooden cage by Mary’s side where she kept her crickets too.

Mary shrugged, “longer than you’d think.” She said with a curious look.  
  
Tiana hummed, “at least they let you wander off after.”

“Yeah. After twenty five pots! I swear, all of you must eat a horse a day.” Mary scoffed loudly.

“Who would you eat a horse?” Tiana blinks a couple times, “Anyway, I’d love to run around like you do.”

Mary rolled her eyes, she turned slowly before bursting into a toothy grin, she always bounced back easily. “Don’t get too bitter, princess,” she held up her little cage, “you’ll make your little friend’s slower with your vibe.”  
  
“I told you that’s a silly theory.” She got down on her knees, “Crickets can’t understand us.”  
  
Mary just winked, “that’s what you think.” She brought the green bugs up to her face, “They hear us.” She poked one of the bigger ones. “You guys are winners! You hear me?”

Tiana can’t help but snicker at that, “they have cricket ears. You’re just scaring them.”  
  
“Oh yeah,” she kneels next to her, “we’ll see about that.”  
  
Mary helps her finish setting up the little sticks they used as a racing path and then took their perch on the sidelines, Mary with cage and Tiana holding her racers loosely.

They glanced at each other, “don’t think I’ll go easy on you.” Mary said with a glow in her eyes.

“Don’t you even dare!” They tense before giggling and throwing their hands in the air.

“Go!” They both yell at the same time. The crickets are off in fury of little hopping legs and frantic leaps.

Tiana’s second one tries to go backward immediately and she has to coax him forward in the right direction. Mary’s first one manages to leap off the course almost instantly and is lost to them, but the other two rush forward toward the little finish line.

  
“Go, go, Mustard Seed! You’re a strong and independent man, don’t let anything slow you down.”  
  
“Oh my god,” Tiana laughed, “Mustard Seed?”  
  
“Mustard Seed is a winner!” She whoops again.

Tiana turns to her fighter, “Go cricket number two!”

The hoot and cheer just as the crickets careen to the finish. Mary’s comes in two leaps ahead of cricket number two.

“Oh come on,” she hangs her head and Mary hoots.

“Haha,” she pumps her hand in the air, “told you my way works.”  
  
Tiana just crosses her arms, “you’re feeding them nice kitchen food. That’s cheating.”  
  
“Don’t get in a huff princess, I just got them out of my yard this morning just like you.” She does a little victory dance.

Tiana narrows her eyes at her with a pout, but recovers easily enough and they catch their little army of crickets and release them back outside.

She feels Mary watching her as they go into the overgrown courtyard, Tiana slows down and stands on the steps of the small area they had found- the abandoned north wing.

“Hey,” Mary says softly, pushing her black hair back. “Princess?”  
  
Tiana sits down on the steps and pats them, “you don’t have to call me that.” She shakes her head.

Mary raises her thick eyebrows, “what should I call you then?”  
  
She pokes her cheek, “Tiana silly, like Gloria does when we’re alone.”  
  
Mary ducks her head a little bit, “we’re definitely not allowed to do that.” She kicks her feet back and forth, she says it softly, “Definitely not allowed to. Tiana.”

They glance at each other and hold each other’s eyes for a moment. Tiana rocked back and forth on her heels before staring up at the clear blue sky, “We’re not supposed to do a lot of things.”  
  
Mary snorts, “you can say that again.” She was studying her, “but what can’t a princess do?”  
  
Tiana frowns slightly, “all sorts of things. You know that.”

Mary bends her head back and faces up, “you know. Everyone whispers about it.”  
  
Tiana makes herself a little smaller, “You’re not supposed to know about that.”  
  
“My brother was a stable boy,” she holds Tiana’s gaze, “do you hate boys? I know it was only them.”  
  
Tiana let’s a little laugh, “I don’t have boys!” She laughs again, “I barely know them. Though my dad’s pretty good.”  
  
Mary laughs with her this time, “they’re not all that.” She bites her lip, “all my brother’s do is whine and make me do the dishes.” She shakes her head. “Like I don’t do enough dishes!”

Mary laughs and Tiana has to join her since Mary was laughing and it was hard not to join in, it was infectious.

“I’ve never had siblings.” She hummed to herself, “I don’t think mama wants any more.” Mary just nods at her.

“Is that why you made my brother get another job?” Mary asks testily, “Because the queen didn’t want sons around?”

Tiana felt a slight strain between them, she desperately wanted to bridge that gap.  
  
She picked at her fingers, “no.” Her thoughts bumbled into each other, she didn’t want Mary to look at her like that, she didn’t want her to look at her like that at all. “It’s um, it’s not that.  
  
“What is it then?”

Tiana holds her gaze, “It’s a secret.”  
  
Mary giggled, “what, like a real full-blown mystery?”  
  
Tiana just nods, “Gloria says I can’t tell anyone.” She looks at her knees and knocks them together, “it’s why she won’t get near my face. That’s why she pulls back so quickly.”  
  
“Why?” Mary scoots a little closer to her, “Is she scared of you?”  
  
Tiana shakes slightly, she tried not to think about that. Any of it. “I, I think so.” She hunches her shoulders over, she bites her lip, “I think you’d be afraid of me too. It’s not… normal.”

She feels a leaf flapping in the wind, about to swept away.  
  
Mary reaches out for her, taking her little hand gently, “Don’t be silly.” She squeezes, “I can’t be scared of you- I’m taller. I could pick you up if I wanted to.”

Tiana sighs and can only push a stray hair back, “Mary, it’s not funny.”  
  
Mary sits up straight, “Bet I wouldn’t be afraid.”  
  
Tiana’s brow folds in, “Bet you would!” She challenges back.

“Bet I wouldn’t be afraid a lick.”  
  
Tiana juts her jaw out, “they got rid of the all the boys cause if anyone kisses me,” she pauses, pauses for a long moment.   
  
Mary’s eyes go wide, “do you die?” She whispers and holds Tiana’s hand as tightly as possible.

Tiana shakes her head, “this thing happens.” She whispers too, “it, it feels weird and they come out of my face.”

“What comes out,” Mary was getting closer now, “like toads or spiders?”  
  
Tiana frowns, “no, no. Plants.” She hums, “Flowers.”  
  
A long moment passes and Mary shrinks away, Mary’s was blinking quickly and then her face breaks open, “hahaha!” She laughs loudly, “flowers?”  
  
Tiana stomps her little foot, “it’s not funny. Mama says it’s danger- dangerous.”

Mary covers her face as she chuckles, “I thought you would say die Tiana!”

Tiana blushes slightly as Mary uses her name, “Everyone hates curses. You know what happened to the Northern Princess.”

Mary pushes Tiana’s loose curl back, “Curse? That doesn’t even sound like a curse, Tiana. Not even.”  
  
Tiana pouts, “Gloria is afraid of me. Everyone thinks I’m um, tanned. Tainted.” She remembers the word her parents used in harsh hushed whispers.

Mary was still covering her mouth, “It sounds,” Mary searches the air, “Not terrible, I mean, Flowers? Kinda nice,” She sighed a little bit, dreamily. “You could just give them to your lover.”  
  
Tiana wrinkles her nose, “I don’t even want to do that.”  
  
Mary shakes her head, “what’s it feel like?”  
  
She blinks a couple times, “it kinda… just twists. And pushes out. But it hasn’t happened for awhile.” She scratches her wrist. “And it is a curse! No one is allowed to like me. They don’t know what’ll happen.”  
  
“Well,” Mary bumps into her gently, “I like you. So it’s already too late.”  
  
Tiana turns her slowly, she blinks, “you like me?”  
  
“Yeah!” She cheers, “you’re like, so much more fun than all the other kids. I can’t even get my brothers to catch crickets with me anymore.”

Tiana tilts her head to the side, “you can’t joke about that sort of thing.”  
  
“I’m not joking,” she sings and Tiana lowers her chin.

“Well, then you’re breaking the rules.” She sniffs, “no kisses. No flowers.”  
  
Mary puffs her chest out and points to herself, “I’m not afraid of flowers.” She snorts, “no one’s afraid of flowers.”  
  
Tiana blows air out of her nose, “and what if they stab you?”

“Doing what?” Mary bounced in place a little.

“With you know, the kiss.” She says as she puts her hands on her hips.  
  
Mary tugs on Tiana’s shirt sleeve, “me?” Her eyes shine, “like, you’d let me? I’d love to see this flower thing.”  
  
Tiana turned her face away, getting a little hotter, “you don’t actually like me.”  
  
Mary grabbed her face between her callused raw hands, drawing them closer, “bet I do.”  
  
She can’t help but chuckle, “bet you don’t.”  
  
She leans in and she’s very close, Tiana sits up straight shifts from side to side, “only if you wanna see…”  
  
She doesn’t even feel the peck, not even the soft feel of skin or warmth. Something curls out of her face, yanked out of her as the side of her mouth became numb and almost painful.

She whimpers slightly and can only try to claw at it, the roses burst out of her face, an entire tiny bush, four flowers uncurling at an unnatural speed.

“Mary!” She calls out, and Mary was still sitting closer to her.

“That’s beautiful Tiana!”

She tries to cover it again, “it’s gonna eat me.”

Mary holds her hand down and touches the first petals tentatively, “you’re like a human garden.”  
  
“Don’t be mean Mary.”  
  
She holds her wrist, “Tiana, it’s lovely.” She shakes her head vigorously, “Tiana it’s-”  
  
“Princess!” Both of their heads jerk toward the sound of a voice in the hall, just as the first rose starts to fall off the bush.

“No,” Tiana’s eyes are wide. “Mary,” she turns back, “you have to go!”  
  
Mary frowns, “Why?” she catches the next rose, “we should tell them that it’s not dangerous.”  
  
She shakes her head, “You have to-”  
  
Frederick’s face pops around the corner and he goes instantly pale, “What have you done?”  
  
It was over after that.

———  
  


Mary and her mother were dismissed, all of the Floyds were dismissed, told to leave after a hundred years of service to the king’s family. Tiana wasn’t even allowed to see her before she swept away in the night, like dust into the horizon.

She cried for days, not leaving her room as her mother knocked and knocked on the door, told her to go to her lessons. Told her to wear higher collars and more gloves.

They couldn’t risk causing a panic, her taint, sickness, no one could know what had slipped over the princess. Whatever it was.

She cried in her room for what felt like a month, and then she brushed her dress off and went for long long rides in the countryside. When she came back she gave her mom a hard look and she wouldn’t say a word to her.

Her mother just told her to go back to her room.

She hit thirteen when she went back there, and stayed.

She was fourteen and locked herself in the kitchen pantry, they had a dinner with a dignitary that night and something was itching inside her like a rough blanket, making her stomach turn. She wanted to scream.

She looked at her arms, pulling off the long sleeves and feeling her own eyes boring holes into the skin. “Don’t go outside Tiana,” she mimicked their voices, “Don’t look at that boy.” She snorts, “it was just a scullery maid.” She feels her hands shake in anger this time.

She reaches down and kisses her pointer finger, she felt the numbness spread almost immediately, the slight sting and static through her skin. She flinches but accepts it this time.

“Let’s see what you can do,” she kisses her wrist and the crook of her elbow, like springtime, rows and rows of daisies and snapdragons twisted out of her exposed skin. Blood red anemone, fragrant hyacinth, buttercups, larkspur.

She peppers everywhere she can reach with her own kisses, growing and covering herself in an automatic garden, falling and sprouting out of her like seasons. Tainted, they said. A fairy’s touch.

She brought hydrangea, lilies, and daffodils to life, the entire floor around her was littered with petals and fallen foliage. Flowers she couldn’t name and her limbs heavy and numb as stones, she didn’t care, she wanted to know.

She curses under her breath and hears someone storming into the kitchen.

“Where is my daughter?” Her mother said with cold control in her tone.

Tiana kneels on the floor and kisses another dahlia out of her pinky finger, she hisses at the feeling, it was getting worse. “I’m not sure.” She hears a meek voice replying. Christy.

  
“Tiana!” Her mom calls, “Tiana come out here.”  
  
She grew another sunflower out of her shoulder and stands up, “In here mother.”  
  
She hears clicking footsteps and her mother’s soft gasp as she must see fallen petals seeping out of the crack in the door. “What have you done?”  
  
She rips open the entrance to the pantry and she can already see her face contorting, “What have you done?” She repeats again with more heat under each word.

Tiana stands tall and tries to keep her scowl trained and fierce, “what you’ve been holding me from all along.”  
  
Her mother threw her hands in the air, “you don’t know what this means,” she turns her head, “Christian, get everyone out of here. Now. Or you’ll be dismissed.”  
  
She hears scrambling, footsteps echoing as the kitchen must be clearing out. The sunflower wilted off of Tiana’s shoulder.

“Why?” She bawled her hands up, “because I’m poisoned? It’s flowers mom. Flowers!”

Her mom bends down and holds up the fistful of daffodils, “And who do you think is going to trust a queen with plants growing out of her? With a fairy’s touch? They’d run us out. Plus…” She just sighs, leaving the sentence there, letting it hang.  
  
Tiana screws her face up, “then what happened mom? Why did you make me like this?!” She stomped her foot as more flowers shook off her arms and rained down leaves and petals over her head.

Her mother’s shoulders fell, “I didn’t.” She sighs heavily, “I didn’t mean.” Her frame suddenly seemed less looming, less tall, mortal. She stared at the floor for a long moment, “We snubbed the western fairy queen.”  
  
Tiana wrinkles her nose, “that’s it?” She picks up the sunflower, “so she gave me flowers?”  
  
“I didn’t know exactly why she did it at the time,” Her mom shook her head, “I just knew that it said my daughter will die as the flowers grow.”  
  
Tiana’s eyes grow, her face falling, “Oh.”

Her mother touches the door frame, as if to keep herself standing.  
  
“Magic comes at price.” She met her eyes, “I didn’t want to scare you with that, but there it is.”

“A price?” Her breath fell away as the words drop.

Her mother nods, “one will fade while the others grow.” Tiana’s eyes go wide.

“You should have told me,” she looks around her, “They’re…”  
  
“They’re draining you,” her mother trembled slightly, “you must have heard that in her studies. Magic takes and takes.”  
  
The flowers were wilting off of her skin, “how do I stop it?”  
  
Her bends her head down, “we burned the fairy queen’s woods down. And then she still didn’t tell us.”  
  
Tiana made a face, “you didn’t just offer a gift?” She threw her hands up, “you burned her place down!”  
  
“I was afraid!” Her mom’s voice was hoarse and a little broken, “it’s, it’s going to get worse Tiana.”  
  
Tiana looks out her mutely. Her life force scattered around her like a funeral. She longs for something she can’t describe.

——–

When she was sixteen it started sprouting, not just from a kiss. A maid ran into her and her entire side sprouted orchids. A lady in waiting brushed her side when dressing her, peonies. Her father tried to take her hand, he forgot, her whole left arm went numb.

It was growing.

“We have to put her away,” her mom’s voice was as thin as the last bit of butter over toast.

“We can’t,” her father’s tone was heavy, weary. “She’s my only heir. We can’t make her more suspect then, then she already is.”  
  
“No,” Her mom was pushing, a firmness in her voice growing. “This is her life, Edward. This is her survival!”

Tiana listened at the door, sitting on the cold stones with her back to the wall, feeling her neck bend down down down with the weight of something unnamed.

“It’s not a price I’m willing to pay,” her mom had decided.

Tiana’s eyes were full, she knew she was never going back. Not after this, she couldn’t have a hug without losing part of herself.

“We’ll have to find a way.” Her father was murmuring to himself, “we have to tell them. Make it sympathetic, make it sound like it can be broken.”  
  
A few words passed between them but there was something clear, certain: she couldn’t stay here.

——-

It was a western castle. Abandoned, alone, ghostly as it was remote. It’s empty halls and echoing cellars emphasized it’s vast isolation. The place was fully stocked before the servants had to leave, giving her pitying looks, hushed whispers.

The abandoned castle of the charred forest, ‘so cruel,’ ‘their only daughter,’ ‘I’ve heard…’ ‘I’ve heard…’

She wants to block it out, but she realizes these might be the last voices she hears for months. Tiana finds her heaviest blanket and wanders away first, she missed Buttercup, the old barn dog. Anyone.

But even Buttercups slight touch brought out the slow daisies and sprouting morning glories. She was becoming more pale and thin from each contact, her complexion going chalky and insides hollowing out. It was going to get worse.

She stares into the weak sun outside and wonders if she’ll die of turning into a pile of flowers first or old age first, her, alone here, for life.

Her parents said they’d fix this, that’d she come back and find a champion to break this, end it.

She hears the servants leave and closes her eyes for a long long time.

———–

It started after the first winter, a cold bitter time where she befriended an angry black cat that refused to be touched. Which was fine enough with her, if not ideal.

She named the cat ‘Cranky’ and accepted it’s company frequently, she talked to her whenever the months came and the days grew long and empty. She coaxed the spitting black creature out with milk and told her stories, pretending the creature was speaking back to her sometimes

She created, long tapestry’s, full quilts, wreaths and wreaths from the pine trees.

It felt like the end days, but only for her.

And then she heard the first voice, “Princess!” It called, “beautiful, lovely creature!” It yelled, “I have come.”  
  
She almost doesn’t process the words as her seventeenth birthday crawls toward her, she heard the voice, but doesn’t process it. She was worried she finally lost her mind.

“Princess!” She turns around to her enormous solitary courtyard and sees a man in armor standing there. He puffs out his chest and their eyes meat. “You are even more of a beauty in person.”  
  
She could have scoffed, “What do you want?” She says dryly, “don’t you know the rules?”  
  
He stood up even taller, “the rules have changed my lady.”  
  
She rolls her eyes, “I’m not interested in whatever you’re selling.” She turns around, her palms a little sweaty. She didn’t want to think what would happen if he pursued her. Bumped into her.

“I know what you’re going through!” He started running up some steps, “I have something. I can cure it.”  
  
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised an eyebrow, “Oh yeah?” A little flame of hope ignites but she extinguishes it quickly.

This young man looked like he had barely started to shave, his features doughy and armor fresh and shiny, like it had been gathering dust up until just this day.

He took a deep breath that almost sounded practiced, “I’ve scoured the land far and wide for something to cure your condition.”  
  
“My condition?” She made a face at him.

He reaches for something in his pocket, “yes yes, the poison. The poison skin! From the serpent that bit you in the wilds.”  
  
“Uh,” Tiana squinted at him, “sure?”  
  
“The fowl beast!”

Tiana started to put it together, she didn’t understand why snake poison was somehow better than a fairy curse, but her parents were obviously trying.

“What is it then?”  
  
He holds a little baggy out, “magic beans!”  
  
She snorts, “magic?”  
  
He frowns at her, “yeah. Got it off a giant miss. He promised they fixed poison skin.”  
  
But my skin isn’t poison. Not technically.

She leans back, “I’m not sure.”  
  
“Come on,” he almost whines, “your parents said I could cure it and,” he gives a pleasant but sideways smile, “we could get married.”  
  
She sniffs, “not interested.” She could die now if they kissed while an entire bush sprouted out of her face. That would be the day.

“Try these!” She backs up.

“Why would those work?”  
  
“He said they would,” he shakes them and takes a step forward.

She shakes her head, “stay back. I’m poison, remember?” She cringes.

“Fear not!” He takes another step forward, “We will kiss and you will be free. I have this all planned out, really.”  
  
She turns away, “I’m not here as a science experiment.”  
  
He takes another step and she starts to dash away, she would try and find a cure herself before she tried black market scams.

“Promise, they’re good,” he starts running after her as she sprints up the nearest staircase. She couldn’t risk him unthinkingly grabbing for her and ending it all right then.

She runs and he chases, it was an exhausting journey across the deserted halls and she can use her superior knowledge of the place to keep ahead. She finds one of the giant cracks in the walls and climbs into it through the spiderwebs.

It takes Jamie the young knight three days to give up and go home, it had snowed and apparently the magic beans had sprouted talking buds. Tiana shakes her head and goes through the couple things he left behind.

WANTED

The words said.

KNIGHT TO BREAK THE POISON ON THE PRINCESS

REWARD: HER HAND IN MARRIAGE

She balls up the piece of paper and goes back to her room, asking Cranky what kind of witches were in the area. Cranky doesn’t reply, but someone had to know how this thing could end.

————-

Three more knights appeared. They all held out different remedies to her toxic skin: a lather that gave you invisibility. Blood of a dragon that made your skin hard as iron. Boots that provided immortality.

The boots were the most sketchy, especially since the red seemed to be peeling off. They all promised to love her even though she had been bitten by a snake and has now slightly deadly.

Tiana very much at that point wished to be poison, she could surely take down bad men and defeat rogues and robbers in her kingdom. A vigilante.

But no, she was a flower girl. She dismisses all of them, usually having to out-wait them and hide in strange places. They weren’t altogether good at hearing ‘no.’

The chase continued and it isn’t until the spring months that one more stubborn one appears, one that wasn’t leaving.

He was wearing a worn out set of silver armor with dents and rust at the edges. The visor covered his whole face and Tiana felt like she should send him home with a sandwich or something. He had a blue crest on his front with a hummingbird.

She stood on the gate-balcony, “we’re closed!” She waved her arms, “I’m not open for more business.”  
  
The visor tilted up and looked at her, the knight kept walking and opened the creaking, ancient gates to the castle. Tiana rolled her eyes.

“At least don’t come near me,” she calls down, “I’m poison.”  
  
She keeps telling the knight that, but he doesn’t say anything, just goes to the courtyard and looks around. Tiana decides that he’s too weird to deal with right now and goes back to her room to try and mix more herbs and elixirs together to try and make something.

She felt like she was getting closer.

It wasn’t until the third day that she saw the knight again, he was perched in one of the empty giant windows and looking out. The visor was still down and Tiana wondered if he was just very very ugly.

She tries to sneak past him, but a creaking hand reaches out and Tiana sees a single lavender flower in his hands. She cringes at the irony.

“I’m not interested,” she says clearly, “everything before this has been a hoax. I don’t need that.”

The knight takes more steps forward, presenting the flora in her direction. “Stay back,” she takes a step away, “I’ll kill you if you touch.”

The knight takes another steady step, something about the approach makes her hold still, like she might spook this person and that couldn’t be good.

“My poison-”  
  
“It’s not poison.”   
  
Tiana stands up completely straight, a shock going through her system. “Excuse me?”  
  
A clear female voice answers her, “I know it’s not a poison.” She pushes her visor up. “Is it, Princess?”  
  
A familiar sharp face looks back at her, beautiful sunset eyes and raven dark hair slightly sticking out the top.

Tiana’s mouth falls open, “no one knows that. I, I.” She stops in place. “I know you.”  
  
The woman nods, “I heard you were suddenly bitten by a snake.” She raises her eyebrows, “shame. You were always so good with animals.”  
  
Tiana shivers, “I was,” she gives a sad smile, “it’s, unfortunately, more complicated than that.”  
  
Mary examines her, “locking you up for flowers then.” She clicks her tongue, “people these days.”

She shakes her head, “they aren’t just flowers Mary.” She heaves a deep breath, “they’re killing me.”

Mary takes off her helmet and holds her gaze, “I know.” She lifts her chin, “I know my dear.”  
  
She blinks, “how?”  
  
“My family had to do something after you were dismissed.”  
  
Tiana’s eyes go wide, “What did you do?”  
  
Mary’s eyes flick down and Tiana follows her gaze, Cranky, the deep black cat stood behind them. The cat twitched her tail and looked upon them both with a flat expression.

Mary offered her the lavender again, “give this to her.”  
  
Mary narrowed her eyes, “I’m not sure cats have much taste in floral indulgences.”  
  
Mary chuckled lowly, “you really are the same.” They both smile back at each other, “you don’t deserve to die Tiana. I know that.”  
  
She hands her the flower without their hands touching, she takes it. “Trust me.”  
  
Tiana turns to the cat quietly, “would you like this?” She creeps up, the cat’s eyes stay on her fixedly and Tiana has to bend down to present the flower to her. “I know it’s been a long couple of months.”  
  
She remembered offering the cat pieces of her meal and convincing her to stay, to keep her company next to the fire. She sees a dark hand reach out from a puff of black smoke, someone rises out of a thick fog appearing there.

Tiana falls backward as she sees a delicate woman with enormous dark purple wings materialize in front of her. She pale silvery skin, like the moon, and high arched cheeks, she flapped her wings experimentally.

“The daughter of Soledad,” she says bitterly, “how you’ve grown.”  
  
Tiana’s eyes go wide, “you,” she says breathlessly, “you’ve been watching me.”  
  
“No,” she says coldly, “you just came to my home that I was run out of.”  
  
Tiana shakes her head, “I’m sorry, my mom, my mom just acted.”

The fairy queen sneered, “I should kill you where you stand. You snubbed me for your birth and then ran my forest down.”  
  
Tiana’s mouth falls open, “you meant for me to die slowly. Alone, alone and of flowers,” her eyes stung. “Flowers you bitch!”

She would at least die swinging.

The fairy queen’s face split into a grin, “I said I should kill you, not that I would.” She frowns and her hands twist, “You nursed me back to health in this horrid place without question.” She opens her arms, “I will not strike you down.”

“Free me then!”

She tuts, “I can’t reverse anything either, you will fade from the flowers your parents sent me as ‘condolences’ for rejecting me the first time.” The fairy queen turns away, “consider yourself spared.”  
  
“Wait,” a clear voice rings out, they both pause, Mary takes a step forward, “You can’t leave. I have a proposition.”  
  


The fairy queen’s lip curls up, “the little girl playing knight. What is it?”  
  
Mary’s eyes burned, “I know who you are.” She says with fire in her words, “I know your rules. And I offer my life force up for hers.”  
  
The fairy queen loomed forward, “what’s that?”  
  
“What is that?” Tiana repeats slowly.

Mary draws herself up, “let me give it to her. When the flowers bloom, I’ll give it back to her. Let me.” She brought something up from her pocket, “you have to.”

  
They stand their for a long stinging second, Tiana sort of looks between them in bewilderment, Mary was holding a long parchment.  
  
The fairy queen let a silver high laugh, she looks down at the rose at her hand. “I contract disguised as an offering.” She raises an eyebrow, “clever.” She wags a finger in the air, “but I can’t undo the curse. It’s done.”  
  
“It’s not a curse,” Mary says strongly, “not if you let me do this.” She reaches for Tiana, “If she lets me in.”  
  
Tiana’s mouth is falling open, “what are you doing Mary?” She whispers.

Mary keeps her eyes on the queen, the fairy examines them for a long a moment, “you want to share a life force?” She cackles, “you want that burden?” She narrows her eyes, “Fools.”  
  
“You have to honor that.”  
  
The queen raises her hand, “it’s almost sweet,” she does a short, flourishing motion with her hand. Mary curls into herself with a grunt. “Have it.”  
  
Mary cries out and the queen starts to disappear into a second stream of smoke. “Wait!” Tiana reaches out, “Cranky!”

The queen laughs and is gone.

Tiana turns back to Mary and crouches next to her, her breath is rapid and feverish. “Mary,” she prays, “are you okay?”  
  
Mary looks up and she reaches up, Tiana veers back from the touch. “It’s alright now Tiana,” she whispers hoarsely, “the deal was made.”  
  
“What, what do you mean?”

Before she can pull back or run through the halls to her cracks she feels a hand meet her face, warm callused skin against her skin. “It’s alright.” Tiana gasps and it feels like something is breaking, “you don’t have to do this alone.”  
  
She starts to shake, flowers were sprouting from the crown of her head, but she could feel the touch. She felt the soft of her hand and electric pulse of her fingers.

Her eyes welled up with tears, she wipes at them fiercely, “bet you still don’t like me anymore.”  
  
Mary tilted her chin up and grins up at her, “Bet that’s not true.” She wipes her big rolling tears away, “or we’ll just have to test it.”  
  
She reaches up and took her face just as she did when they were kids.

A warmth like a spring fills her, fills the bottomless well in her that she didn’t even notice was empty. She feels her chest rise with light and the color coming back to her chalky skin.

Mary came in soft, soft and delicate like a sunbeam hitting her face. The kiss broke her heart and shook her all at once. It took her in its hands and shook her core until all she was just that kiss and nothing else.

The world fills with a glowing pulse and there are roses scattered all around them. She laughs as they pull back, “I’ll have to get used to that.”  
  
Mary laughs herself and takes her face again, “We have time to practice.”  
  
They kiss once more and Tiana is surrounded, daisies and sunflowers and the whole world of unnamed flowers. She is full again. 


	6. It is too Bad I am but a Cat, and you are the Sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: for slight injury

You get up at around seven every day, I know it’s around seven because I often see you lift your head, blink at your phone a couple times and press the grey square on the screen. Sometimes you do that twice. Or three times. Or four.

You’re usually at least upright by 7:30 and threading your fingers through your hair, messing it up and contemplating the thick knots that had formed overnight.

You go to take one long shower with steam wafting up through the crack in the door. I am honestly concerned about how long your showers are, how hot they could possibly be? The steam sticks to the ceiling and amusement spreads throughout my chest.

You start to hurry around eight, you’re outside by then, always. Like there’s a timer in your head that brings you out with the sun. It’s eight and you are outside on the terrace with rows of tomato plants and snap peas and mint leafs on either side.

I’ve never seen you grow anything but herbs and vegetables, but maybe that’s because of space or preference or some bad experience with a daisy. Either way, I see you frantically preen and anguish over every leaf and clump of dry soil.

This is my favorite part of the morning, where you get out your little hose and water bottle and go from plant to plant, delicately sprinkling water overhead, smiling and touching the soft skin. I imagine it’s soft, I haven’t touched anything like that in some time.

Not like you would.

You tie your auburn hair back to tend your favorite one: the watermelon. I’ve never seen it actually flower and create the nascent bulb for the fruit, but I think you have faith. You whisper to it and pump your hand in the air, like a cheer or chant.

I think you are patient and kind, people who like plants have that look about them. Maybe it’s just my wishful thinking, but my chest tightens every time you talk to your watermelon.

You run back inside after that and grab a protein bar and thermos, filled to the brim with two earl grey tea bags. I wish you would eat more than protein bars for breakfast, you spend so much time growing vegetables after all.

You slip on the same comfortable white shoes every day and dash out your apartment like you couldn’t be bothered.

Then, then I look up back at your little garden and twitch my tail, I wish you would come back. I wish the world turned a little slower.

———-

Your sister comes every Thursday, I don’t think you like your sister, she frets. She grabs your hair and points at split ends, she opens the fridge and points out all the empty spots.

She’s older than you, she has a broad look about her, like she was carrying something on her shoulders we couldn’t see. She frowns at you and picks up pieces of paper to show you the lines, sometimes they’re just numbers.

She has one frazzled ponytail on the nape of her neck and a collection of red shirts that all look the same, and she frets.

You sometimes roll your eyes and say something she doesn’t like, you argue, sometimes you sit down in front of the TV and watch some show that makes your body rock with laughter. You like your sister, you always carefully wrap up leftover food for her and kiss her cheek before she leaves.

She likes you too, she brings you seeds and little watering cans with frogs and polka dots on them, I’ve never seen you use one more than once but you always clap your hands and squeal. I sat there for hours after the first time you beamed like that.

She kisses your forehead before she leaves.

Once she brought you watering can with a cat on it, God I hoped, just a moment, a brief painful moment, that you liked cats. It’s something I dismiss quickly, like the temptation to swerve into oncoming traffic or scream off a tall building.

—–

You have asthma, it made me fluff up all along my spine the first time. I saw you outside your own building, sprinting through the rain with your eyes wild. The wind was whipping over the city with angry fingers and howling breath, and yes, your potted plants had blown over.

You almost slip, sprinting through the downpour as you reach for the overhang on the apartment building next to yours. And then reach for a small white device, you shake it and inhale.

My eyes go wide, I wish I hadn’t seen it, I really wish I hadn’t.

You inhaled deeply and hold your chest as you wheeze in and out, I want to be down there, or a thousand miles away.

——-

You like silly TV shows that seem to make you laugh and you go to bed at ten every night, which is too bad because that’s when I am the most awake. You own a flute that you never seem to pick up and several different coats with various holes in them.

I don’t know how you get so many holes in all your coats, even the new ones, I’m not sure you know either.

You have several calendars around your apartment, you mark things down on a huge one in the corner, the one with horses on it that you drew a little stick figure on the top of during a party.

You have a smattering of freckles over softly brown skin and thick auburn hair that seems to get away from you in every way. Your nose is slightly crooked but I can’t imagine you’re bothered by it. You once had friends over and spent the party with your nose taped back like a pug dog, you never stopped laughing.

I don’t know what they call you, I hope it’s something nice, I hope it’s something warm.

——–

I never thought I would meet you, I wasn’t supposed to. Technically, like any other creature after all this time, I was supposed to be dead.

Instead, I was curled up in the corner of a dusty brown room with my ears pressed back. I feel the pressure of the room change before I hear her.

A crackle sizzles through the room that ruffles my back hairs and makes my whiskers twitch. A flash comes from the corner and a figure steps out.

“Nevermore!” I turn my head languidly. A woman in a heavy dark robe and a crooked mouth stares me down. She was young, only seventeen, but her hands were gnarled and pale, like they were losing blood every moment.

She kept her chin tucked down and her yellow eyes flashed in the dark, “Tibetan juniper.”

I get up and stretch, arching my long back and feeling my tail curl up behind me, I yawn. Jules taps her staff on the floor, “if we had time to catch flies with our mouths I’d hire a net, get.”

She swats at me and I turn around in circles before glancing over my shoulder, Jules was forgetting about me quickly. Turning back to the ring in the middle of the room and mumbling to herself. I turn around in a circle a disappear into the nearest shadow.

Tibetan wind soon rakes across my back and I blink into a brilliant white winter. I start walking.

You were out buying groceries, I know this because it was Sunday and you always come home with stuffed brown bags on Sunday. I think about that as I trundle through the snow banks and toward blue fruit on a shaking branch.

———-

She named me Nevermore, like the poem. Like I was just an extension of one long dead poem that you could steal the words from and feel vindicated. Like I was just her cat- and she thought I should have a silly name.

I’ve forgotten my birth, I forgot a lot of things. First colors and then thumbs and then the feel of cloth against my skin.

Jules didn’t take my voice, so that was at least something. But only a little something in a long line of nothing.

 

I stood by Jules side, stoically, the devil’s pet to the devil’s maid. And I forgot.

I was in the alley next to our when it happened the first time. Jules was out at work as I prowled the alleyway back and forth. The rats down here had more fight in them, but there were more of them anyway.

I hadn’t eaten that day so I was keeping my eyes wide and belly low to the ground, I hear the chitter of rodents behind the dumpster and I tread my feat lightly across the flattened boxes.

My muscles are tensing, haunches lowering, my shoulders ripple.

BANG

I jump and so do the rodents, I hear them scramble away in every which direction before I turn to check on the sound that ruined my moment. My eyes go wide when I see that it’s you, you were holding a phone to your ear and swaying back and forth as you made it into the dank alley.

I back up toward the wall with my hair fluffed up, I didn’t like the odds of this.

“No Jerry,” I hear her murmuring, “we can’t wait for the order tomorrow, Ms. Jenny wants it today. I know, I know, but you have to find a way around it, she’ll have my ass… Please?”

I could have rolled my eyes, just threaten him.

She walks down my way and I see her short pink dress with the satin sheen and pearls around her throat, I don’t know what kind of party this could be. It didn’t matter, I turn around in a circle, readying myself to jump again.

My heart was already pulsing painfully from being this close, no one could know. What would Jules do?

I take the first step and then I hear a sniff.

“Oh God,” I turn around, there you are. Pushing your thick hair back and dabbing at the corner of your eye, you had hung up and were now hunched over in the alley.

You dial a number and I see your fingers shake as you lift the speaker up, “hey Camy, hope the twins are doing good. I just… yeah. Sorry, I know you hate that.” Your voice wavers and there is that painful pulse in my chest again. “I’m just, so stressed right now. The deal is almost falling through and miss Jenny is… yeah. Just, call me back.”

I take a step forward, I don’t know what I’m looking for but I see you. All of you, tall and sleek and not through a window pane. You stand with your back to me and I want something that tastes orange and secret inside of me.

You hang up slowly and turn around without thinking, I freeze slightly. “Oh.” She breathes and blinks a couple times. I should shadow jump, right then and there, I should leave.

She puts her hand out, “what are you doing out here, kitty?” She looks both ways and I lay my ears down flat. “It’s going to rain, you should get home.”

Her hand looks soft as it reaches for me, why was she so naive? I take a step back but we are inches apart. She is still reaching out, she cocks her head to the side, “do you have a home around here? You’re awfully pretty.”

I should have disguised myself as a ratty stray, it didn’t matter, she was staring at me. I unwind slowly and glance back and forth.

I flick my tail, once, twice, an energy floods through me and I meet eyes with her, luck. I try to push the charm through my veins, luck.

I was a little rusty at spells by myself, Jules needed me more as a vessel or conduit than a spellcaster myself, but I still had it in me. I’m sorry.

 

I think the word as I push the fizzling, spitting energy through my skin and your hand touches behind my ear, “you’re a nice kitty, aren’t you?” Your brow folds in, “have I seen you around before?”

Your hand strokes my head and I indulge, I nuzzle my head down into your palm and you laugh. “You’re sweet.”

The charm courses from me into her, luck. It was the least I could give to you.

You laugh again and pets my long body until my hairs are flat, “you know what you’re doing.” She scratches my chin for a long moment before sighing, “I should get back in.”

 

Your phone begins to ring and I have a feeling the deal is about to go through. “Well,” she turns away but I’m already turning around in a circle, “Kitty, I think-”

I am whisked away back into the depth of my own shrouded home and the red red circle in the middle of the floor, the blood Jules was gathering was still drying. I run to the corner and try to look at the window to see you return that night.

————

I crossed the Patch family when I was only nineteen, by now I was much older than that and yet not old enough at all. I was only nineteen and I wanted to take down the most prestigious witch family in town.

I thought they were twisted, too powerful for their own good and hoarding all the artifacts for themselves. I was young and arrogant, though I did further than anyone thought I would.

Then I fell into one of their transfiguration circles, it was over as quick as it started. I forgot the feeling of clothing against skin, what colors looked like, how sugar tasted. I remembered my dark jet black whiskered face more than my human one.

I served Georgia Patch first, then Alyssa, and now the youngest Patch, Jules.

Jules didn’t talk to her aging mother now but I figure one day I would serve her daughter too. Jules was curious in the way youngest daughters usually are, how they sometimes try to prove themselves to something wasn’t there.

Her hands were turning more clawed by the day, I felt the rush of sickly green magic surge through the loft daily, the smell of blood filled the small room and I saw the bags under her eyes turn into dark pools.

“Revive them,” she was muttering, stirring, sprinkling things in with one stiff handful after the next. “Revive.”

She went back to muttering tongues as I placed my head down. Most people had some percent of witch left in them (I’m 2%! Well, I’m descended from the Wicker family, my mom side had a great great grandma, so on). But Jules wanted something more, forgotten magic, words that no one remembered any more, lost, stolen.

Rooms that smelled like blood and mold, I would have rolled my eyes if I could still do that. I yawn and watch her sprinkle something mossy down into a brew.

 

“Nevermore,” she grunts at me, “go make yourself useful if you’re just going to lounge there.” Jules curls her lips and I can see her pointy sharpened teeth again, it sends a pang of annoyance through my system.

I knead the pillow under me languidly before standing up. Jules eyes me, “I don’t need you distracting me,” she waves her hands in the air, “get.”

I take a step back and turn into the nearest shadow, away from the bubbling cauldron and her fruitless journey to nowhere.

I’m on the street in a heartbeat, I shiver in the chilly breeze as the day edges into night. At the time, I thought it would be a regular evening, I run down Pearl street and make it to Broadway.

I think about trapping a pigeon in a magic circle to eat later, but I start to see people come out of houses with colorful wings and a mask with cartoonishly large eyes. I step backward, kids were yelling and running around with soft bags and pillowcases.

Their cries make my ears sit flat on my head and I turn around to go find my way home. I didn’t need all these people stepping on me or running over my tail. I start darting home, I wasn’t looking where I was going. It was thoughtless, maybe that’s what got me.

The invisible walls went up before I saw the white lettering on the ground, the glowing words, the witches circle on the sidewalk. I rush over the lines and into a hard surface.

“Rawr!” I yowl as I run into the see-through barrier and hear a cry of laughter.

“Did you get one? Damn dude,” I hear chatter and footsteps coming up behind me, I whip around with a slight snarl.

“She’s so big!”

“Rrrr!” I rumble at my enemies as I look up at them.

“Get the stick dude, the stick.” I fluff up as I take in a group of five eleven-year olds looking down at me. They all had masks on and dark clothes, one was holding a piece of cheap enchanted chalk, I bare my teeth, I didn’t like this.

“I can’t believe that worked,” the bigger one said with a smile, I couldn’t believe it either.

“Is she a real familiar?” The other one took a crooked stick and poked into the circle, I jump back from the prod.

“It got caught in the circle, didn’t it?” One of them replies back factually.

I hiss gently as they approach, snapping my tail back and forth dangerously, one of them holds a bottle up, “what happens when we spray her with this ya think?”

I could see his white teeth spread out with glowing brilliance, he was holding a squirt bottle and a black poker stick. I hiss again.

The holy water comes down on my head in a stinging cloud, I run around in circles to avoid it but it hits the tips of my ears and shoulders anyway. I recoil from the harsh touch and scrunch my face up in a growl.

I hear a chorus of laughter, “she’s freaking the fuck out!”

They spritz another time and this time I jump backward, clawing at the air and ducking away from the spray.

“Make her stay still!” One of them calls, “I want to see if she catches fire from this stuff.” They do another couple clouds of holy water and I yowl loudly.

“Get her foot!”

“Stick her down.”

I dart away from the black fire poker stick stabbed at my foot, I dart left and then right. I dance around the persistent strikes until I feel a sharp smokey pain shoot through my right foot.

The biggest boy hoots, “Got her!”

 

“Rrrorw!” I yell, my heart racing and fear spiking through my system. Of all things, this is not how I wanted to go.

“Hey!” I feel myself freeze, so did the boys. “What the hell are you kids doing?”

“Shit,” one of them pulled his mask down further. I decided right then that I hated Halloween.

“You heard me, what do you have there?”

“Roooorow!” I make a loud call for someone, anyone though I already recognized the voice. Some part of me was in denial, you wouldn’t, we couldn’t. But I was right in front of your apartment.

“Is that a cat?” I hear clicking hurried footsteps, “what are you monsters-”

“Hit it!” The kids throw their hands up, dropping the chalk and scattering in opposite directions.

“Oh my God,” your eyes are large, brown as sturdy oak trees and a whole entire field waiting to burst into wildflowers. I quickly go to lick my bleeding paw and hopefully duck away into the night, but your soft hand is reaching down. “What have they done to you, kitty?”

Your eyes are so tender, soft like pillows and satin sheets. I let you gently stroke my head, you click your tongue and scowl. “Nasty brutes.” You delicately hold my gaze and reach out, taking my foot in hand, I try and flinch away. “It’s alright now.”

I know, I think back. I know.

“Hurting cats on halloween, what ingrates.” She takes something from her pocket. “Do you need a vet kitty?” She asks as she dabs at the shallow wound on my foot, soaking up the little bit of blood there.

I don’t say anything, I don’t know what I would say. You are kind in the way that people who love springtime and gift baskets are kind, I already knew that.

My heart is in my throat and you take out water and pour it over the little cut before patting it dry, inspecting it, holding my paw up. At some point I imagine it’s like holding hands, but that was sillier than the whole of anything else.

I look up at you, you smile down. “You’re that cat I saw before, the good luck one.” She presses her face down. “Don’t you have a home?”

I twist slightly and she rubs her across my back, “poor thing.”

I knew I’d have to leave, Jules was only happy with me being gone so long. “Kitty,” she croons and I can’t help but step forward and press myself up against her ankle. She laughs, “you’re a friendly thing.”

She tries to pet me again, “I’ll make sure those boys are reported, why don’t you let me-”

I go running down the street, no shadow step, nothing. My heart was still jack-hammering in my chest, I couldn’t do, I couldn’t keep indulging.

I run until I make it home and let you sit on the street with just the memory of a hurt stray cat.

———–

I watch you the next day, carefully, hesitantly. You get up around seven, you take a terribly long shower. You tend your numerous plants on the terrace.

“What are you looking at this time Nevermore?”

I turn to Jules slowly, she was looking out across the cityscape too, but in a bored monotone. Her face was more chalky than usual, her expression fixed and heavy. She had failed again last night to summon The Forgotten Words, or do much of anything it seemed.

She hums, “do you think it will take something more?” She mutters, her hand rakes across my fur, her nails digging into my back. “What do you think?” She glances at me, her eyebrow raising, “Would you like to sacrifice yourself for the greater Patch family?”

I give her a blank look, my eyes focusing on her with intent, her mouth twitches up after a long moment. She laughs and turns away, “like you could offer anything.”

She shakes her head and goes lumbering off back to her open book, “parsley, monkey brains, spoiled milk…”

I keep my eyes outside and you get off to work around nine.

–

It happened again the night before the full moon, Jules was getting more ideas. I know this by the fact her heavy footsteps were thumping down the hallway in ones and twos, she was in a hurry and the mumbling was increasing.

“Parsley, spoiled milk, seeds, why didn’t I think of seeds?” She bursts through the door and addresses me sharply, “Nevermore!”

I look up gradually and she points at me, “do you see the woman across the way?”

Oh no.

I don’t make a move, keeping myself perfectly still, Jules wasn’t looking at me. “She has a mark.” Jules points to her thinning wrist, “a gold star on her wrist.”

Oh fuck.

A gold star, a luck charm, if I could speak I would quickly tell her that the neighbor must just have some witch in her or a relative’s small charm.

“That’s it,” Jules perches by the window, “we’ve been getting our plants from all these common fools,” she taps on the glass, “we need a witches garden.”

I relax slightly, head bowing down and looking away, “I can felt the fortuna charm from here.” Jules mouth spreads out into a sharp wide smile, she tugs on my tail. “Go get the tomatoes and mint from her garden.”

I sigh internally, I brought this on myself.

—–

I started stealing regularly from the neighbors garden.

It didn’t feel good, I knew how hard she worked on each plumy leaf, spending Saturdays digging through fertilizer and turning dirt over and over. My stomach turned each time, but something else in me swelled.

This is where she stood, this is where she tredded, where she stroked the heads of the snap peas and loved each and every green sprout. Plus, I finally got to come to her watermelon plants. I place a luck charm on them too, pushing a bright yellow light into their thin veins with a strong intent gaze. Let them grow, let Jules never know.

It was hard to wake up in the morning and see you tutt and fret over the missing sage leaves and the places where tomatoes used to be. But there wasn’t anything I could do, just get closer.

I never meant to meet you again, that night next to your apartment was enough, when you dabbed my paw and cradled my head. Your soft voice and kind words stuck with me in the endless nights of chanting words and pots bubbling over with God knows what.

Jules said she felt like she was getting closer, her hair was starting to fall out and I heard her leaving voice messages with hushed spitting whispers on her phone. I suspected it was to her mother.

It didn’t matter, I tried to spend less time in the loft and more time anywhere else. I wasn’t getting much sleep, but I always figured cat’s needed far too much sleep anyway.

It was one of those creasing cool nights in January after a long sleepless day when I met you again. I gently landed on the terrace across from us, placing my paws down as I exited the shadow of a sagebrush.

I surveyed what was left of the plants I hadn’t taken from. Jules needed more basil brewed in lambs blood, I was told to at the very least get the basil.

I walk in between the bean poles and various troughs of soil and sprouts, it was barely ever winter in Milton Southern California, but she wasn’t growing as many plants as before. My heart sinks at the thought.

I pad over to the glass door and the mini-greenhouse she created for picky plants and ones that needed moisture. The basil was right outside.

I lower my head as I approach, stepping lightly as I plan to tear off several more leaves and disappear without a sound.

“Ah-ha!” I jump and almost turn myself into a ragged image of red horns and sparking flames, scaring whatever dare challenge me. Instead, I see a cheery woman in beige. “So it’s you!”

I lower myself to the ground and narrow my eyes, it was you. Just as round-cheeked and freckly as the first time, you were beaming. Then your expression distilled into something more curious.

She cocked her head to the side, “kitty?”

I turn on my heels, ready to leap away, but I feel a pair of hands wrap around my sides, fingers grasping my belly and lifting my paws off the ground. I squirm and consider flicking my tail and turning her inside out. I don’t, she lifts me to her chest and holds gently.

“Are you just hungry? Is that why you’re eating my plants,” You stroke my head, “you seemed so friendly. Maybe you are a stray afterall.” You held me close and turns toward the door. “How about a proper meal.”

My heart throbs like a drumbeat playing an army down to a battlefield, I couldn’t just let myself be dragged into a home. But I could see the door approaching and my own claws retracting, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t hurt you.

 

You close the door behind us and I smell spices and a fresh ink scent from the computer in the corner. She was printing something as she left the TV in front flashing. The sound was off but she had a large cup of earl grey tea and a pair of rubber gloves next to it.

You had been waiting for me.

I squirm in her arms as it all became too much, “mmmmrrr.” I growl at her softly and she places me down.

“Grumpy,” she huffs, “you really do need to eat.”

Apparently I had been too kind to you the first time, you looked at me fondly and fluff my hair as I feel the thick carpet under my paws and warm air around me. Jules had kept the loft at a tepid freezing point for days now.

You jog across the room and reach high up into one of the cupboards. I follow in a little sluggish zig-zag.

I look up curiously, you are cracking open something and my ears perk up as I smell pungant tuna fish. My belly rumbles and the temptation overwhelms me, I pad over to the kitchen with my claws almost-out. I knew what was happening.

She places down the can of tuna and my heart swells a little bit and I put my head down to sniff the dish before starting to lap up the little fish.

“There you go,” she says lowly, “I can’t believe you’re the one terrorizing my garden.” She shakes her head, scratching me behind the ear as I eat. I rumble in the back of my throat, but not in a bad way.

“You’re a sweet girl, aren’t you?” She opens another tuna can for me and I always knew you were kind, perhaps too kind.

She washes up the dishes and starts humming to herself, “what about Little Black Shadow? Or Honey. Fausta? That means lucky, you seem lucky, all those deals went through at once after I met you.”

I wonder why, I think to myself and don’t react.

“Fausta or Lucky, maybe Fortuna,” she laughs out loud, “you do love tuna.”

She was putting on another pot of tea as I watched her, I hope she isn’t lonely, she is talking to me right then and there. I prepare myself to circle the nearest shadow.

She’s reaching down, “you seem very clean though, do you really not have a home?” I stare at her blankly and she breaks into a smile and draws me closer, “my sister says I can’t have cats, that it will make my asthma worse somehow.” She snorts and tries to pick me up, I resist, but only a little.

She bundles me up and hugs me to her as we walk over to her couch. I can’t help it, I let her sit down with me on your lap and turn the volume on the TV up. I curl up, covering my feet with my tail and looking up at her.

She pets me and bends her head down.

“You can wait with me,” she whispers, “everyone else is with my mother right now, I couldn’t make it.” She sighs, “she should be okay. She should.”

She turns up the volume again and I assume she’s waiting, and not just for me. I let you pet me, cooing sometimes and pressing your nose into my fur.

I don’t mind, I don’t mind a lot of things as I sit safe and dry in your arms. I knew what was happening.

I find the rumbling spreading my chest to my whole body, I purr as we both start to drift off on your wide couch, a movie called the Goonies plays in front of us on repeat.

I wish a wish so harsh and large that feels like it might rip me apart or lift me into the next hemisphere. It clings to my heart like a hangnail and I curl up tighter in your lap.

I push more luck from my small pool of magic into you, let your business thrive, let your mother recover. Let the world shine for you.

———-

I woke up in the morning with a full belly and warm ears, I had a sweet dream about my childhood, I was holding the string for the morning wash and dancing around with it in circles. I wanted to be a dancer at that point, and a hero, and everything else in between.

I blink open my cat eyes, away from the colors of the dream and back to your arms around my body and muted tones of the real world.

“There you are,” you were wiping at your eyes, “I didn’t want to wake you.” She hadn’t moved since dawn appeared it seemed like.

My internal clock tells me it’s around seven thirty, I give myself another minute of her warmth before I hop off delicately, she laughs.

“No more eating my plants little lady,” she tisks and straightens up with a crack from her back. “Or else I’ll have to feed you and cuddle you each night then.”

God yes.

I turn around.

“Say,” she was still nudging me, poking at me with her foot as I stood on the ground. “How would you feel about staying somewhere dry and safe each night? If it’s a yes just s-”

Nevermore, I flinch as a voice splits through my head, get back here.

I hear nothing after that, you are picking up the phone. “Yes, this is Marissa,” I give you one long forlorn look, “how is she doing?” Pause, “that’s great!”

That fills me with something indescribable, I turn into the nearest shadow and disappear into the dank, rancid loft across the street from her.

Jules bares her sharpened teeth when I return, “I saw you.” She narrows her eyes and I consider hissing at her. She just starts muttering to herself and shaking her head, “stupid cat.”

For once I agree with her.

—–

It happened one midnight, spring was starting with a tentative little foot in the door and I was tired. You had gone away to your families for christmas and I almost felt empty with that. Jules was gnashing her teeth and hadn’t left her single room loft in weeks. She hadn’t showered in weeks either, even if I mildly tried to hint at her she should.

I gave up rather easily, I was the Patch’s involuntary servant, not their nanny.

Jules was murmuring, I was looking out the window. The spring was coming, you were outside, digging and replanting large pots, there was soil smudged across your nose and I want the world.

Your mom had made a full recovery from her heart attack and you had been planting more and more since then.

“That’s where you’ve been, isn’t it?” I don’t make a move as Jules address me, coming up from behind and hovering. I turn a bored look in her direction, she rakes a hand down my side as if to pet me.

I try to convey that there wasn’t anything she could technically do to me, I could disappear at any moment I wanted to.

She glances at me instead, her lips spreading open, “good job Nevermore.” I want to groan at my own name, but her praise gets my attention.

She was staring out the window with crescent moon eyes, my blood runs cold. “Something is different.” She mutters hoarsely, “I can see it all over her. Gold, shining, that star on her wrist.” She gives a wild smile. “Lucky blood. It will be perfect for the circle.”

My eyes go wide, I want to scream it, I want to choke her. No.

“Rrrrrrrrrrawr,” I growl and lift myself onto my feet, raising my haunches dangerously. She just frowns at me, “RRROW!” I growl again and send a wave of hot, burning magic in her direction.

“Shut up Nevermore,” she lifts her finger and I go flying across the room, “finally. Finally. I will bring back the words to humanity. They’ll sing my praise from coast to coast. Fortune really will be with us,” her eyes glow yellow, “thank you.”

 

I shake, I knew I did this to you, I did this. “Magic is stronger with love, isn’t it Nevermore?” She snorts, “white magic at least.”

I could tell she wasn’t impressed by White Powers. And then she was gone.

—-

My paws were stuck to the floorboards, magically glued there by my mistress. I don’t know why she would do this, but my stomach had dropped and I felt sick. I had spent the last ten minutes calling at the top of my lungs, singing to the high heavens for someone to do something.

Nothing, nothing happened.

I had to do something, fear courses through me like fiery jet fuel, it stings and every nerve in my body is on fire. I try again, surging power through my paws, white magic that burned the bottom of my feet.

I send another shimmer of yellow light, luck, that pulsed and cut deep as I rip my feet off the floorboards. It stings but I resist the sticking magic keeping me there.

I tear out of the corner of the room with my entire form shaking, time, time, time was not with me. I’m counting down minutes as I sprint to the nearest shadow.

I careen into it and plant my feet as I feel cool tiles slide against my pads, “rrow!”

I scream and see the precinct turn their heads to me, I flick my tail and send the nearest pile of papers careening to the floor with a wave of power. “Mrrrow!” I try again.

“A witch!” Someone next me yells and I see people reaching for their guns.

I lay my ears down and bare my teeth, trying to convey something I couldn’t say.

“Step aside, step aside,” I see a woman in a long dark blue robe standing in front of me, she’s stoic and tall with glassy sharp eyes, the police station warlock. She had a giant bird of prey on her shoulder.

I call out to the falcon and the bird flaps its enormous wings, I try to articulate something to it in harsh whispers, an ancient tongue that I felt like I was just discovering.

The warlock turns her head slightly to listen and I don’t have time for this. I flick my tail again and send more papers flying, I turn toward the door, trying to get them to follow, to listen.

The warlock turns her head slowly, time is everywhere. She lifts her hand, “follow that familiar.”

 

I shoot out of the building with my nose pointed toward the smell of them, time, time, time. I could see the knife in Jules Patch’s hand. I could see the circle she was drawing.

The police officer’s feet pound after me, “slow down!”

“Is she allowed to do this?”

“Someone is in trouble,” the warlock was catching up and I can only point toward the apartment.

I’m not sure how long it takes to get there, it feels like forever, but I know it wasn’t over yet. “Mrrrr!”

I take the steps two at a time, I could feel my lungs throb in my chest, limbs starting to howl and breathe coming in sharp hurried bursts, I sprint.

“The MUS is off the charts! It’s picking up major black magic.”

“Get your taser out,” The warlock picked up her staff and sent a ball of white light careening through the air, I watch it pass me with a crackle. It explodes the apartment door on front of it before sending a blinding white light into the room like a bomb. The Light Saturation clears the dark magic before the officers enter.

It was a precaution but I wanted them to be faster, I force myself through the light and to you, to your frightened shaking form. Your neck is bleeding, eyes wide and unblinking, mouth open.

You were alive, I could have collapsed on the spot, Jules was curled up on herself, retracting from the burst of blinding light that must have sucked from her dark spell.

“Pigs!” She shouts from the ground, “fucking fools.” Jules reaches for her staff next to her and I force a yellow pulse out of my paws and toward the wooden stick, it flies out of her reach.

Her caustic grating gaze falls on me, her mouth foaming, “traitor!” She shrieks, “betrayer!”

I kick the staff farther away and the police come bursting into the room next, “freeze!” Their tasers are up, hot on Jules crawling, twisting form.

“You’re holding back the future!” She shrieks, the sparks fly as the magic ball sends shocks through the witches thin body, she dances in midair like a marionette on jump rope strings.

A pang of pity, regret, courses through me as she spasms in the dank heavy air, makes me reel back for a moment, did I do the right thing? She was barely eighteen.

And then I look at you. Your eyes are wide, brown as sturdy oaks and open fields before they sprout wildflowers.

“You,” you gasped at me, having most likely put two and two together. She trembles, “You’re hers.”

In some other world this isn’t it, we dabble into forgotten magic and my claws arc into fingertips. My arms stretch and fur sprouts into hair, I reach for you and hold your beautiful head as we cry about all the things that are lost.

We would embrace on the terrace the wind would blow through our hair, just as the watermelon begins to flower and all of time slows down, for just a moment.

Someone ushers me into a small dark cage.

“Edith Wentworth,” an authoritative voice reads out as they hold up a magic transcription, “you are under arrest for aiding and abiding a witch practicing black magic. You have the right to remain silent.”

They had found me, as they should. You stand up, teetering and uneasy, holding your neck and eyes unfocusing.

I go willingly into the cramped space and remember that no one knew how to reverse a complete animal transformation. You are holding back tears, the luck charm shines on your wrist vividly and firmly, I exhale. Jules was incapacitated on the floor, the blood circle was smeared and forgotten, the witches brew was simmering down.

You were whole and breathing and beautiful.

I go into the cage and watch the terrace outside as we leave, it becomes smaller and smaller as they carry me out, this isn’t the other story.

For it is too bad that I am but a cat, and you are the sun.


	7. Point A to Point B

_The Girl in the Pets World  
_

The song ‘Your Body is a Wonderland’ by John Mayer was playing over the loudspeakers as I creep down the fish food aisle. My shoes squeak across the clean linoleum floors and the sterile blinding fluorescents blare from overhead. My hand grazes over the colorful fish food labels one at a time, blue, yellow, pink, ultra pink.

I was feeling a little like fish food myself at the at moment, small and chewed up, but maybe that was just the drama addict in me.

A little girl in blue corduroys and pink sneakers looks up at the speakers as the lyrics ‘ _And if you want love we’ll make it, Swim in a deep sea of blankets_ ’ plays. I hope she’s thinking about blanket forts or something when he says the last part.

I’m not, I’m looking at the front cash registers and sweating, I was never very good at keeping my body temperature at a normal person rate. I sweat in meat lockers, I sweat at hockey games, I sweat in the basement of the school during nap time when I was five. And I sweat getting in line at the Pet’s World for the cash register.

My mom said all the sweating was from my various allergies, but once I found out ‘allergic to earwax’ wasn’t a real thing I stopped taking my mom’s word on a lot of things. Though most dogs still made me sneeze, I was trying to ignore that and hope it goes away.

I held Chubs favorite TetraFin Goldfish flakes in my moist hands and look up the ceiling where two industrial fans swung round and round.  Whump whump whump.

My eyes follow them lazily and hear a loud squawk from the bird section a few paces away and try not to flinch.

‘ _You frustrate me, I know you’re mine all mine all mine, but you look so good it hurts sometimes_  ’

I hear the song croon on along with the whump whump whump of the industrial fans overhead.

“Next!” I try not to freeze, or swallow my tongue, or sweat through all of my clothes in 2.3 seconds like some sort of ooze monster.

I ooze forward anyway on my human slug legs and push the fish flakes across the counter, a girl with short swishing blue hair takes the item and presses it across the scanner. Her fingers were long, piano-player long, with three rings on each hand. Not enough rings to be obnoxious, but enough to knock some teeth out if she punched a man.

I’m imagining her punching a man now and I’m sweating.

“Hey,” I wipe my palms down on my jeans, trying to resist digging my teeth into my cheek.

She pushes her strands of deep blue hair back and glances up, “hey.” She presses some buttons on her register, she might as well be pressing magic buttons on a wizard wand to me.

“How are you today?” Her voice is low, deep like a purring car engine or bass guitar, formal as it was bored.

“Pretty good.” I stop myself from trying to get something more out, ‘start out small’ I remind myself.

She glances up. “Your total is $4.55.”  
  
“Oh,” I riffle around through my pockets, trying to figure out if I brought my wallet or dignity or that notebook I wrote lines down in. “Here.”  
  
I place a five down on the counter and she nods, “pretty hot out there today.”  
  
“Yeah,” I gulp and swallow thickly, “nice to be out of school.”  
  
She snorts, her round delicate features in motion for a second, “you can say that again.” She hands me back 45 cents in change and I take it with just a mild little nod. “Did you want a bag?”  
  
“Nah,” I turn around, a dime falling out of my hand as I grab for the fish flakes and go to bolt. Chubs didn’t even need any more flakes yet, I’m running anyway.

“Next!” Her voice calls out and I wonder if she knew my name. If I was just ‘some random fish flakes girl’ to her and she was  Mari S. to me. Mariana Santiago, and I was dying.

I’m out the door.

——–

I’m gasping for breath and feeling my nerves jitter up and down like a jukebox. The cool shadow of the building pets my cheek and I feel like falling over.

I hear snickering off to my left, I’m almost gagging on my own tongue, “Ugh!” I rake my hands through my chin-length brown hair and spin around in circles. I’m on the side of the building now, where the large windows can’t see and only a few cars pass by, the sidewalk chafes on my naked knees as I crash down.

“Okay,” a voice calls out to me, “so I take it you proposed on one knee and she said yes.”  
  
I don’t even look up, “shut up Dana.”

I feel someone kick my ankle as I keel over dramatically (for the drama addict in me).

“She spun you around and you kissed against the sunset.”  
  
I tilt my eyes up to scowl at my best friend, Dana Kim. “Yeah. Then we made out against the doggy daycare display and the people in the fifth aisle clapped.”  
  
“Hey, I think it’d be cool to lose your v-card up against the doggy daycare sign…” Dana’s eyes mist over, “like some innocents lost imagery or some shit.”  
  
I roll over on my side and consider flopping my way over to the highway on my stomach. Girls met other girls in hospitals, right?

“How do people do this?!” I throw my hands in the air and shake my fist at God.

“You know,” Dana cracked her ankle as she took a squat next to me, “Bars, bus stops, aquariums, Christianmingle.com…”  
  
“How do gay people do this?” I correct myself, “we know that she’s gay, right? We say her tinder profile. There was a girl holding hands with girl emoji.”  
  
“Dude, her facebook page is a rainbow flag background,” Dana flicks me gently.

I blink up at her, “Maybe she just likes rainbows?”  
  
Dana rolls her eyes, “get up.” She puts her hand out toward me and I grab it, she hauls me up with an exaggerated groan. “God, the weight of your bullshit is giving me arm muscles.”  
  
“Pfft,” I punch the side of her arm once, “like you could get muscles if you wanted to.”  
  
Dana flexed her thin pale noodle arms, “I’m butch.”  
  
I pat her back sympathetically, “my brother asked me who that sad twink was the other day before I told him you just got a haircut.”  
  
Dana made an abject face at me and stuffs her glasses higher up on her nose, “Tell Robbie I’m gonna kick his fucking ass.”  
  
I laugh, “let’s go. My mom still thinks I’m applying for jobs.”  
  
“Aren’t you?”  
  
I shrug, “a type of one.”  
  
She laughs and pat me on the back again, “girls like girls with money you know”  
  
I look up at the sky and I feel my hair tickle the back of my neck, “do girls like girls?”  
  
“I’m gonna kick your ass,” she grins, “start walking hot stuff, we’ll go over where you went wrong.”  
  
I jump down from the curb and start walking toward the brown on brown suburbs in the distance, “I said ‘hey’ and followed up with a sad confused gay telepathy look.”  
  
“What did I tell you about gay telepathy?” We cross through the parking lot, “it doesn’t actually work if you aren’t already bitten by the radioactive ghost of Freddie Mercury yet.”  
  
I yank at my stray hairs and want to flop over again, “nothing works.”  
  
“Maybe asking her out works?”

“Don’t be daft,” I sniff loudly with a teasing grin and she shakes her head. We jump down from the curb and start meandering along the scruffy uneven road.  
  
I look up at the bright, cloudless pale blue sky. As blue as it got in Hobbs New Mexico.

I let out a long puff of air as I let the summer of my junior year soak into me like an old rag, I sigh, “what if I go to college without ever having kissed a girl?”  
  
Dana adjusted her glasses and stuffed her hands in her pocket, “I dunno, be like every other gay girl out there Feli? Lesbianism is like a social yield sign. Everything takes a little longer my friend.”  
  
I look over my shoulder and give a sad smile, “thanks.”  
  
Dana shrugs, “that’s for me too. It’s not like blue-haired Miss Mari is my type, but I could use a girlfriend as well. Like, yesterday.”  
  
“You’ve already had a girlfriend,” I say with a scowl, “save some for the rest of us.”  
  
“Uh,” Dana scuffs her foot on the ground, “that was at band camp, which doesn’t count, because everyone is gay there and now she lives in Massachusetts.”  
  
I wrinkle my nose, “gross.”  
  
“I know,” she nods, “and we barely held hands. She was super shy, and like, we just fumbled around that first kiss like idiots.”  
  
We start walking up a grassy hill as we approach Peach street and turn toward the dead and yellowing patches of foliage up at the top.

“Oh yeah, the first kiss you described as the ‘most magical touch of the first world order created by the heavens themselves’.”  
  
“I did not phrase it like that,” she says indignantly. “I called it the breathtaking flowering of my adolescence.”  
  
“Jesus,” I shake my head, “And then three months later at Macy’s party you said that it sucked.”

She frowns slightly and then shrugs, “that’s sometimes how it be.” She shudders, “It was just super, dry.” She wrinkles her nose, “and light.”  
  
I groan and flop down next to Our Spot, the place next to the rusted broken down truck that somehow got on Deadman’s Hill and never left. “I can’t believe even you can’t get a good gf in this economy.”  
  
“Even me?” She grins, “I’ll take that as a compliment,.”

“Dan,” I say slowly, “I don’t know where I’m going wrong.”  
  
“Well, let’s start,” she takes a deep breath in but I stop her.

“I’ve seen the movies.”  
  
“Okay, you’ve seen the movies,” she flops down next to me.

“I’ve heard the songs.”  
  
“You’ve heard the songs.”  
  
“Will you stop that?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“I’ve done the research!”

“You googled ‘hot tiddy’ twenty eight times a week.”  
  
“Lord save me,” I look up at the bright sky and try to ignore her, “how does a girl get from point A to point B? How does anyone get a girlfriend.”  
  
We both glance over at each other, a heart beat passing between us like a whispered curse word. She moves her shoulders up and down loosely, “hell if I know.”  
  
We go back to look up at the limpid blue sky.

———–

“Did you find work?” My mom was rearranging her herbs cabinet.

I lean on the doorframe and watch her frizzy brown hair get caught in her shirt collar, “getting there.” I say slowly. “I’m thinking Barnes and Nobles.”  
  
She glances up slightly and puts her oregano next to her sage grass, “your aunt messaged me last week that leo’s were going to have a month of wealth.”  
  
It was probably too bad in my mom’s universe that I never felt like a leo, “sure, send aunt Maude my love.” I say flatly and drum my hands on the countertop.

“And to watch out for bad smells!” My mom hoots, “that’s why I’m making sure our spices are in order.”  
  
“Good mom.” I turn toward the door, thinking better about having come in there in the first place.  
  
“Tell your brother to turn his video game down too, you know how I hate those gun noises,” she moves the sage grass next to the mint leaves.

“I will,” I sigh heavily, “and mom,” I glance at her, she manages to crane her neck over as she messes with her stray hair caught in her collar. I sigh again, “Nevermind.”  
  
“Have you fed your fish?”  
  
I nod, “Chubs is… good.”  
  
She nods, “that fish is lucky, you know he is. I got him from Todd.”  
  
Todd was our previous next door neighbor who sold weed to my mom (for medicinal reasons, naturally), he gave his betta fish to us before he left. He had two, the other one’s name was Ganja.

I crossed my fingers, “I’ve been feeling luckier already.”  
  
“And take your cloves!” She says hotly, “I’ve seen you buying more kleenexes.”  
  
I roll my eyes and turn toward the basement, “I know mom!”

I haven’t taken my cloves in months, but I had started eating gluten against in April and felt better than ever, so there was that. Gluten, of course, was one of my many allergies on my moms ‘Felicity List.’

I hated her Felicity List.

I end up going down the next hallway, completely failing in asking my mom the one question I wanted to know: how did you meet dad. How did he meet you- and then how does anyone meet girls? How do you do love without a proper script for it.

I end up just knocking on my brother’s door, “turn it down!” I holler, “your call of duty is making mom’s aura black or whatever.”  
  
“Fuck off, dump-truck.”  
  
I scoff to myself, my brother was at the age where he discovered that he had something to say, and it suddenly didn’t have to be good things. Or even decent things.

“Robbie, Dana says she’s gonna kick your ass and I’m tempted to let her.” I just hear a series of yelling and gunshots on the other side, “wear headphones you brat!”

“Like I have to listen to someone who leaves their bloody panties o-”  
  
“I’m coming on in!” I rattle the door. “And I’m telling mom if your essential oils are in the trash again.”

“Fine, fine!” He says shrilly, “I’m putting headphones in.”  
  
He mumbles something rude after that but I just shake my head and move on, I had a game plan to continue to make.

I knock before entering the basement and coming down the stairs two at a time, “that was a bust!”

Dana was sitting in our beanbag chair looking at her phone, “I suppose ‘I told you so’ wouldn’t help?”  
  
“You haven’t told me anything in the eleven years we have known each other,” I wag a finger at her and she sticks out her bottom lip.

“How’s the moodboard of love going?” She jutts her chin out toward my open notebook, I blow air out of my nose.   
  
“It’s mood is ‘bored’.”

“Ooh, good wordplay.”  
  
“Ugh.” I turn over to flop into my own bean bag chair next to hers. “Love is fake and being gay is…” I frown, “hard.”  
  
“Haven’t you heard? The het-ys will also say being straight is hard too.” She doesn’t look up from her phone.

I cover my eyes with my hands, “any insta news?”  
  
“Mari hasn’t posted anything since the 911 post about her finding a new top from that consignment store,” Dana nudges me with her foot, “but Paula from phys ed is starting a girls rugby team and posting about it, and it’s,” she lifts her eyebrows, “kinda hot.”

I sit up straight, “is she…?”  
  
“Still dating Patrick Ludwig or whatever, but my point still stands.”  
  
I tutt and click my tongue, “a good one fallen.” Dana laughs and a turn over on my stomach, “what’s the other game plan?”  
  
Dana puts her legs in the air, “research.” She winks, “there’s this episode on Netflix that’s supposed to be hot.”  
  
“That we haven’t-”  
  
“That we haven’t seen.”  
  
I put my finger in the air, “play it then!”

“Say no more.”

We turn on ‘Vegan Cinderella’ about two girls and no story plot.

Of course, the two leads get in one glance at each other and then get together. No one ever really tells you how you skip from noticing each other to straight up crawling all over one another. There is no in between.

I try to take notes.

——

It was a lazy summer, a bright one, slow, there were a lot of things I was trying to piece together and tear apart again. Mainly, why I was in Pet’s World, standing in the fish food aisle. It was like reliving a bad dream I kept having.

They were playing ‘Call me Maybe’ like some sort of summer throwback to two years ago and I was feeling resentful.

I had Dana in my ear, I clear my throat and whisper, “okay, repeat to me again what you want me to say.”  
  
Dana clears her throat, “well hey there sugar lips-”  
  
“Nope.”  
  
She lowers her voice, “Why don’t you bring some candy over to daddy.”  
  
“So unhelpful.”  
  
“That’s what I said my first time,” she said from outside, I could almost see her smirking at me from there.

“You did not,” I say indignantly, “you gestured and stuttered and maybe flashed her once, that’s the true story.”  
  
“You’re right. Please flash Mari S for me, like full on vag and/or areola.”

“I hate you.”  
  
“Muah,” she blows a kiss my way and I shake my head.

“This is why we aren’t dating.”  
  
“Gross. I’ve known you too long for that, that’s like kissing your cousin.”  
  
“Also gross.”  
  
“You need to fly little bird!” Dana yells into the speaker, “spread your wings and take your clothes off in a public Pet’s World. Full areola. Maybe a little ass, all of your thighs.”  
  
“I’m just going to ask her if they have any job applications.”  
  
“Boooo-”  
  
I hang up on her.

My breaths come out harsh and uneven, I prop myself up anyway and ignore the hamsters in the next aisle giving me the side eye from their cages. I had a girl to figure out how to date.

I walk up to the cash register, it was eleven in the morning so the store was particularly empty and I was feeling particularly bold after chugging one and a half Dr. Pepppers. I wasn’t allowed sugar or caffeine as a child so it tended to have a more profound effect.

Mari seemed to be glancing down at what I assumed was her phone, I was looking out at nothing as my eyes unfocused in a sort of last resort defense mechanism. I force myself to plant my feet in front of her cash register.

It takes her a moment to look up and it takes me a longer, much more uncomfortable moment to say anything. She was looking at my empty item-less hands.

“Do you like working here?” I ask in a monotone. A beat passes where her painted eyebrow arches, I fumble the ball in midair. “I mean, I’m looking for a job is all.”  ‘Is all’ is still a cute phrase, right?

Mari leaned down over the counter and stuck her tongue out slightly, “honestly? Love the animals, but customer service will fucking drag your soul out through your ass.”  
  
I gulp, “so I’ve heard.” I rack my head for sentences, or words, or singular intelligent sounds. My phone buzzes as Dana must be watching me from the outside. I wipe my hands down, “but the animals, right? Sounds fun.” I offer weakly.

Mari gives a half-smile, “it’s pretty chill, I get 20% off dog food, so I guess it almost works.”  
  
I grin, “what kind of dog do you have?”  
  
Mari raises her eyebrows even further, “a lab.”

“Cool!”

Another beat drops and the silence drags on a little bit as I try to come up with something like a sleeveless magician. Mari taps her nails down and tilts her head to the side, “his name is Bruce Lee, like the actor since my mom was super into martial arts after she got freaked at a store robbery. It wasn’t even her store.”  
  
I take a deep breath in and my heart sort of soars, “that’s cool. Bruce Lee? I love dogs.” Was this working? It felt like it was working.  
  
“Yeah,” Mari gives a half-smile, “they’re the reason I work here at all.” She shakes her head, “honestly, I could just leave the people out altogether.”  
  
I laugh and it almost doesn’t turn into a snort, “tell me about.”  
  
Mari grins again and looks me up and down, I almost explode. “Did you need that job ap?”  
  
I shrug, “I’m still deciding.” Hard to get, hard to get.

“Well,” she huffs and looks up at the ceiling, “it might be nice to have someone who isn’t obsessed with the bachelor to work here.”  
  
I could have bounced on the soles of my feet, “you got me pegged. I don’t even like roses.” I was supposedly allergic to them.  
  
She just clicks her tongue with a slight laugh and takes something out, “go for it then.” She hands me the job application.  
  
I nod and run out of words in my word orchid to grab from, I take the piece of paper and turn around instead. “Thanks then.

“Sure.”

My eyes dart back and forth and then I bite my lip, turning slightly, “See you then.”  
  
“Definitely,” she waves, I wonder if this is flirting.

I practically run back outside as I try to chew on what this all means, my shoes skid across the exit like they’re going to burn up and a run around the corner of the building to bend down and tear at my hair.  
  
“Mppmph!” I squat down on the ground where no one can see me. “Mmmph!” I hear someone skipping up from the left.

“How was it? How’d it go?” Dana circles around me enthusiastically as she approaches, “did you do the dog-sign-virginity thing?”  
  
I throw my hands in the air and make another strangled sound, “mmph!”

“And she’s a winner!” Dana goes to high-five me and then ends up laughing. “I can’t believe you done it. Or something I take it.”

“Ah!” I let out something that was almost a whoop, “she said ‘definitely!’” I turn around in circles, “she thinks it’d be cool if I worked there!”

“You’re going to get married,” Dana clapped her hands and I ignore her.

I almost fall down on the pavement right there, “to Deadman’s truck!” I point to our hill, “we have to tell me how I to actually get a job.”

Dana laughs and then covers her mouth, “I can’t believe you wouldn’t get a job to help me buy a car together, but oh, Mari Santiago is hot enough for it.”  
  
“So hot!”

“Let’s go then,” she pushes me back to my feet, “play by play girl, play by play.”

I’m walking around in circles, “she has a dog!”

“No duh.”  
  
“He does martial arts!”

“Slow down there.”  
  
We walk to our hill and I can’t stop talking, one step at a time, one little step at a time.

——-

I didn’t know what to do with Mariana Santiago. She was there, toned and surly and goth gf material one moment, and then super surly and unreadable the next.

I really did need fish flakes for Chubs the next day (my brother tipped over a whole bottle of it the night before) and Mari doesn’t even look at me as I walk by. She’s outside leaning on the wall. It seemed to be her break, she was holding a cigarette and inhaling deeply, I hold my breath.

“Hey,” I don’t know what to do with my hands at that moment, or what I’m doing at all.

She barely looks up, “oh hey.” She looks back down at her phone.

“I applied for the job.”  
  
She takes a look time to respond, “good.” She takes a drag, “Brian has been complaining like one of the broken parrots about being short-staffed.”  
  
I bite my lip, “think I’ll get it then?”  
  
Her eyes flick up and down, I wish I wasn’t wearing my loose Bob Ross tank top that day, “you’re breathing, aren’t you?”  
  
I shrink a little at that but try to grin, “last time I checked.”  
  
She shrugs, no laugh, “You’ll do fine.”

I wait for something more, but Mari looked like she was several miles away and not at all walking. I start to turn away, “well… bye. See you in the store, maybe.”  
  
She waves with her lit hand and then is typing something, “break a leg.”  
  
Point A to Point B was a confusing little road that went up back and around, Mari Santiago, queen of the goths, apparently had a lot of detours.

———–

Day One: Two Words

Our shifts don’t line up the first day, I accidentally ring something up three times and get softly chewed out by an old lady.

My hair is a mess, I sneeze five times when an extra hairy mop-dog walks in. I try to discreetly take a white allergy pill I got from a friend while a teen boy with a sweater vest judges me. I drop an entire bag of seeds I was scanning, but luckily it doesn’t break open.

I stutter, a lot. And my perspirant only lasts for half the day before my sweating is back, but of course, I do see her at the end.

She comes in, shaking her chin-length wavy blue hair and her black boots clunking on the employee room floor. I barely have time to look up.  
  
“You survive?” She asks dryly with her lips twitching. I could have whimpered.

It was one of her smiley days, where her dimples almost appeared, I end up just nodding mutely before shrugging my bag on my shoulder and turning.

I remember to skedaddle on out of there, I needed to play hard to get, I needed to mostly fix my hair and change my shirt.

———–

Day Two: 13 Words

We discuss the fact, again, that Mari’s boss loves the bachelor, and she hates it. “It’s the worst thing to happen to love since the Twilight series.”  
  
I don’t really know what to say to that, so I try to channel my inner Dana, “hets, amiright?” I don’t mention my brief Twilight phase.

Her eyelids are blue that day, iridescent blue to match her bangs. “Okay?”  
  
I’m not sure she understood what I meant, it’s then rush-time on Saturday with puppy training hour going on in the back of the store. I get slobbered on and ask to change registers when my eyes get as red as a fire hydrant.

I didn’t mention on my resume that I had any allergies, mostly because I was hoping all of them were fake instead of just most of them. My mom picks me up that day and I don’t let Mari see me sneak into her car with my nose leaking like a faucet.

————–

Day three: five sentences

My feet hurt, my head hurts, my back hurt, but mostly my feet hurt.

Eight hours, eight hours of standing and staring and I finally understood the phrase ‘counting down the seconds.’ Sure, something like social studies class was bad, but that was just fifty minutes.

This was four hours straight with a couple breaks thrown in, I think I might start to lose my mind by closing time that night. The store was dead quiet, the shadows growing on the walls and the pain growing in the soles of my feet, I always did have weak ankles.

I shift from side to side, rueing my ungrateful body and counting the number of squawks were coming from the bird section. Mari was standing a few registers away, but she hadn’t said anything that night, I hadn’t been feeling ‘me’ enough to start anything yet.

But I hear something, “hey.”  
  
I turn jerkily at her voice, my eyes going wide, “hey.” I barely look at her.

“How you holding up?”

I chew on something for a long minute before catching her eye, “my feet hurt like I stepped on a series of legos at a gynos office.”  
  
She laughed, a real life where her teeth showed in a goofy way, “oh man, definitely.”  
  
I grin, “I think they may soon fall off.”  
  
She shakes her head, she taps on her own converse, “insoles.” She says, “insolves my friend.”  
  
I nod with my face going a little hot, “are those new shoes?”  
  
Her dimples show a little bit, “nah, but,” she bounces her eyebrows up and down, “I did just spray paint them..”

I told her about my feet and it’s the longest conversation we ever had.

—————-

It was 11am on a Saturday and I was lying on bed going through my nail polish, I owned three, and one of them was sealed shut. I feel someone throwing a kleenex in my direction.

“Okay,” Dana calls over, “but tell me if she really has a soul jar in her room of the spirits of our classmates she’s cursed.”  
  
I roll my eyes at Dana as she swirls around in my my black office chair I got from a yard sale. I push my glitter blue nail polish away, “She’s not like that.”  
  
“At least confirm to me that she’s a wiccan, like, I’m 69% sure she is since she keeps posting hand-drawn summoning circles on instagram,” she hums, “but you never know these days.”  
  
“We haven’t got there yet,” I pause as I try to recollect all the details I had gathered from work, the recon mission of a life so far. “She spray-painted her converse recently.”  
  
Dana spun another two times in a circle, “black or purple?”  
  
“Black, also,” I go to swat at her, “get that look off your face.”  
  
Dana kept going, only pausing to poke my with her sock, “what face?” She kept holding her mouth like it had a crooked secret.

“The judgy face,” I wrinkle my nose, “I know she’s not your type.”  
  
She puts a hand over her heart, “when have I ever judged anyone? Ever?”  
  
I get up from the bed and start to walk over, “When have you have ever judged anyone?” I put my hands on my hips. “Strike you down now?”

Dana puts another hand up, like a girl scout taking a pledge, “strike me down now.”  
  
I grin and take another step forward, “and the Lord has spoken!” I flop down on her lap forcefully and spread my limbs out. “Oof,” Dana pretend gags as I sit on top of her.

Dana tries to push me off, “you are waaaay too bony for this Feli,” she tries to grab me around the waist and I flail my arms around with a laugh, she dodges my elbow. “You’re gonna take my eye out!”

“Oh, and she never judges,” I poke her and sit more firmly down, “she takes her punishment like a saint.”  
  
“Sainthood is a given,” she makes a stoic face and I laugh. “You may strike me down,” she starts spinning, “but can you hold on?” She pushes off the wall and the chair wobbles.  
  
“Dammit, Dan!” I grab the chair’s arms and we start going around and around in rapid circles. “I’m allergic to motion!”

“I know! Along with oats and milk and glutton and dogs and earwax, woo!”

I start to jab her with my elbows and we’re cackling and probably disturbing the neighbors when my phone buzzes, an actual buzz that almost made me jump out of my skin.

“Woah!” I fall halfway out of Dana’s lap as she slows to a halt.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”  
  
I hold a hand over my mouth, “motion sickness?”  
  
“Look at that!”

I go to read the notification and my eyes go huge. I had a new follower on my instagram. “No.” My mouth falls open, “no!”  
  
“Someone’s on the smash-cash train, beep beep,” she makes a train noise and a scramble over to the discarded iphone 6.

“What does this mean?!” I look at the fact that ‘shoelaceslace’ had followed me back on instagram. My mouth was still open, “what does this mean?!”  
  
I feel someone push on my shoulder roughly, “it means your on course for SS Macktown, occupation goth lipstick stains, hot damn!”  
  
“Shut up,” I push on her back, “never speak again. I’m having a crisis.”  
  
“Lactose crisis level or like, still failing social studies crisis?”  
  
I start gnawing on my bottom lip and then a flop down on the bed, “does she like me?”  
  
“Does she not like you?”  
  
I kick my legs up and down and then roll back and forth on the bed, “well she doesn’t hate me!”

Dana laughs and calls me an idiot, “nobody’s gonna dislike you. You’re like, only 2/3s dislikable at any given moment.”  
  
“Dan,” I say shrilly, “I need to post something cute.”  
  
“Post about your favorite punk band.”  
  
“Something cuter.”  
  
“Post about your huuuuge crush, the one who works at a pets store and likes MCR.” I throw her a pointed look, “what?” She pushes her bangs back, “it’s the direct route!”  
  
I sigh, loudly. I was good at the dramatic. “Fine.” I try to find the best picture of me from my trip to Albuque, “point B here I come!”

“You’re gonna message her?”  
  
I throw her a blank look, “no.” I say shrewdly, “I’m gonna very very slowly crawl into a date through my picture of me holding a butterfly in a pavilion.”  
  
“Boo.”  
  
I try to mentally get on that train again.

——-

Sunlight hit the back of my neck and I felt a sizzling under my skin, my work bag hangs over my shoulder with my cellphone, lunch, and water bottle. I tap my foot angrily on the carpet and my mom looks me over.

I was standing outside my kitchen with my arms crossed over my chest, my left eyebrow was twitching and the floor smells like mildew and peppermint. “I have to.”  
  
My mom’s back was turned to me and I could hear the noise of my brother’s gun game from a room over, a distant ‘pew pew’ that was even starting to grate on my nerves.

My mom started to pick up a scented rag, “and what?” She frowns at me over her shoulder, “what am I going to do with all that wasted time?”  
  
I roll my eyes, “I never said I was actually going to the spiritualist. It’s a Sunday! I have work.”

“Felicity Laura Munez it is already booked.” She was balling up the rag in her hand.  
  
“I never said I would go!”  
  
My mom slits her eyes at me and I wouldn’t  be surprised if she started hissing to ward off the negative energy around us. “Sometimes it feels like you just aren’t trying.” She says it lowly, it was worse than a hiss.

“At what?” I say dryly, not meeting her eye.

She puts her palms up, “at our relationship! I asked you to reschedule for this last week.”  
  
“For the last time,” I stomp my foot, “I’m not sick, I don’t want to go to this spiritualist.”

My mom puts a hand through her wild gray-brown hair, “then what about all the lethargy? You almost flunked freshman year, and you know you were eating so much bread that year.”  
  
I rolls my eyes, “I don’t want to have this conversation again.”

My mom put her hand out, “it’s just for an hour-”  
  
“You wanted me to get a job,” I hitch my bag up on my shoulder and feel a little cool. “I’m going to go to my job.”

“Felicity!”

I turn hotly on heels and scurry out before I lose my nerve or let my mom finish her next sentence about considering all the mood swings I had from last year. It had to be that red meat I ate, didn’t it?

I’m still scowling and red in the face by the time I walk to the Pet’s World, my head is spinning and I can feel my insides prickling. “She always has to insert herself, always has to make a thing out of everything,” I start muttering to myself as I made my way into the back of the store.

I had the same shift as Mari that day and she seems to see me coming in, my phone is buzzing.

“No mom,” I picked it up furiously and start speaking, “I don’t want to do this right now, just go by yourself, that’s what you usually do.”  
  
She lets out another string of words about meridians and not doing crew for the school play this year if I don’t get myself together before then, I end up hanging up. I angrily punch in just as another pair of shoes come up next to me. They were spray painted black.

“Hey,” I jump, realizing that Mari is standing right next to me. She looks me over steadily, “you good?” She points to the phone I am almost crushing in my fingers.  
  
I nod slowly, “my mom’s just being… out there.”  
  
She snorts, “I can tell.” She puts her hand out and my skin tingles as she brushes my elbow. “Need to blow off steam?” She offers slowly, “I’m going to go to this place after work with some friends.”  
  
“Oh,” my eyes go wide, “Oh!”

I suddenly had a lot to thank my mom for, and yet nothing at all.

Mari nods, “I get it.” She sniffs, “My mom pisses me off all the time, plus,” she grins. “I saw you like PBR.” I remember the joke post I made a year ago of a beer can.

I nod again.

———–

I had two hours between when my shift ended and when I was supposed to be over at Mari’s, my heart was still racing. “Dana!” I called out from my closet, “tell me what to wear again.”  
  
“Nothing.”  
  
“No, the other thing.”  
  
“Hello Mr. President outfit.” She wasn’t looking up as she seemed to be trying to send twelve text messages all at once. I was on crew, and Dana apparently needed to update everyone on the theatre group chat about me. And my new love life.

“Uuugh,” I start to groan, “I need to look cool. Actually cool.”

Dana throws me a thumbs up, “you’re getting there.”  
  
I groan again and walk around in circles, “Okay,” I take a deep breath and gesture down, “black jeans.”

“Check,” Dana was nodding languidly as she typed.

“Blue ripped t-shirt.”  
  
“Sure?”  
  
“Just sure?” I almost tear the rest of the shirt off.

Dana jammed her phone in her back pocket and walked over, “your gonna do fine Feli,” she straightens her overly large sweater, “this is obvs going somewhere.”  
  
I cover my eyes, “straight to hell.”  
  
“Only if you sweet talk her just right!” She cheers and I walk around in another circle.

“I’m not cool,” I groan, “not like her. This can’t work.”  
  
Dana rolls her eyes exaggeratedly, “I think you’re cool.”  
  
I pause and glance over to her, “really?” I adjust the straps on my shirt.

“Well,” she scratches her neck, “Okay, technically I think being cool is overrated. But we’ll stick with the first version if that’s what’ll make you feel better.”  
  
“Oh-ho-ho,” I whimper and go drag myself to my bed. “This is why being gay is so hard. Only one in five of us is at all cool.”  
  
Dana shakes her head, “being gay makes you cool!”  
  
I frown at her deeply, “gimme some examples for me though. Do I even have funny stories?”  
  
Dana Kim stroked her chin thoughtfully before putting her hands in the air, “you refused to get into my grannie’s pool for the first five years I knew you because you said you were allergic to chlorine.”  
  
“Yes. Hilarious.”  
  
“And when you finally went in you did a cannonball! And threw up chips into the pool noodle, that was great.”  
  
I almost flip her off, “So I’m retiring at the ripe old age of 17. From life.”  
  
“Don’t be melodramatic,” she comes over next to me, “I thought it was a hilarious. We were super buddy best friends after that.”  
  
I let out a deep breath and glance over at her, “you think the word ‘weiner-dong’ shouted out in math class is funny.”  
  
She snickers, “I do.”  
  
I go to grab for my coat, “Mari doesn’t. She barely thought Finding Nemo was funny when we watched it in IB Spanish last year.”  
  
“That’s because she’s laaaaaa-”  
  
“Don’t say it.”  
  
Dana blows air out of her nose, “I know we, the gays, don’t have a lot of options-”  
  
“Don’t say it.”  
  
“But just be yourself Feli,” We both sit up and she puts her head on my shoulder, “it won’t be worth it if you aren’t.”  
  
I look up at the lazily spinning ceiling phone and go to grab my phone, “I’m wearing my combat boots.”  
  
Dana just snorts.

————-

So I was at a party. A real party, a party party, with music and people and drinks with words I couldn’t pronounce on them. And I was suddenly very very aware I was alone there.

There was a thumping bass coming in through the floorboards and a whole slew of people I didn’t know standing on either side of me. The house was a rundown place I had to take the bus to from Wadsworth street and apparently owned by someone’s older brother.

There weren’t that many people there yet, but I was too busy counting the carpet hairs to really appreciate that. Dana had waved goodbye to me at the bus, wishing me all the luck in the world and seeing me off. I suddenly desperately wanted to hide behind her as she blew a raspberry to ‘lighten the mood’ at rundown parties like this.

I stare at my shoelaces again.

“Hey,” I hear a voice call, “hey, Felicity.”  
  
I feel the ice in my gut melt and I see Mari waving at me from an armchair across the room, thank God. I had been let in earlier with a couple people, but they said they didn’t know where Mari was, I creep over slowly.

“Hey there,” I put on a small smile, “thought I came to the wrong place.”  
  
She just shakes her head, she’s looking dimply and light for that night. “Nah,” she brushes her hair aside, “this is Jason’s place, he says we can hang here whenever.”  
  
“Nice,” I try to seem smooth and take a seat on the couch next to her. I search the air for a moment, “I’m glad we can hang outside of work. Less people asking me where flea collars are here.”  
  


Mari gives an unknowable smile, she nods. “Have a drink.” She hands me an open beer and I try not to make a face at it. “You seem cool,” my heart soars as she hands it over, “better than anyone else Pet’s World at least.”  
  
I exhale and stifle my red face by throwing back the beer, it tastes like warm dirt. I shrug when I look back up, “A job is a job.”  
  
“Oh my God, yeah,” she rubs her nose, “my mom went on and on about how I had to do something this summer, like, come on. She’s lucky I don’t just drop out of school itself already.”  
  
“Right?” I try to sound sympathetic, the silver bracelets clang on Mari’s wrist, I can’t stop watching her mouth move. “One more year though.” I do a cheers with her with her our open cans.

Mari clinks with mine, “I hope.” She shakes her head, “I would just run away with my dog if I could.”  
  
I sit up straight and smile, “Bruce Lee?” I offer shyly, “where would you take him?”  
  
“Anywhere,” she wrinkled her nose, “dogs are better than people, I could take him anywhere and be alone and it would be better.”  
  
“Yeah,” I nod, but I’m shifting back and forth in place. I didn’t know what to ask her, did she like theatre? Did she like Skyrim? Books about outer space? She didn’t like people apparently.

“What about you,” she turns to me slowly, “where would you go?”  
  
I search my head, “New York?” That sounded neutral.

Mari takes another sip of her drink, “right on.” She nods, “what’s there?”  
  
I put my head on my shoulder and try to look nonchalant, “broadway and less hay fever.” I joke.

Mari lifts her eyebrows, “I’ve been meaning to ask about that,” she looks me over, “is that what all the sniffling was about?”  
  
I freeze, she had noticed.

I gulp dryly, “grass seeds here,” I gesture around in the air, “it totally fucking sucks at work.”  
  
She eyes me, “I bet.”  
  
My skin crawls and I wished I could bring up something we both liked, something that wasn’t hay fever. “My mom is totally lame about it though.” Mari’s eyes focus on me.

“What, she tell you it’s all in your head?” Mari’s lips were curling up, I had a feeling there was a story though.

“No, she makes me take like, fifteen supplements a day, and most of them aren’t even FDA approved,” I feel the rant start bubbling up out of me, “and I swear, one of them gave me awful cramps for a week.”  
  
“Supplements?” She looks me over curiously and I wish I hadn’t mentioned cramps.

I shift on the lumpy couch, “like, uh, cloves and herbs. It’s hippie-”  
  
“Oh man, I wish my mom bought me more herbs. I have to do all my wicca shopping offline, and that was before she took away my credit card.”  
  
My heart sank, something was feeling off in my gut, I take another huge sip of my bear and try to disappear into the heavy beat of the bass.

I wasn’t feeling very cool.

—————

“Because he’s a jolly good fellow, because he’s a jolly good fellow, oh!” I was clapping my hands and singing along with everyone else, my head was fuzzy. There was something stuck on my jeans but I hadn’t bothered to take it off yet.

Someone was whooping and there was a bottle on a table, I felt like I was in some 80s movie where the cheesy pop ballad was playing that showed I was having ‘fun.’ I wasn’t sure what I was having, but I hadn’t thought about what I was saying for at least an hour now.

“Woo, good song mate.” Someone clapped the person who’s turn it just was, having been tasked to sing any song he liked for two minutes straight. He gave them a thumbs up after his very drawn-out birthday song.

There were cards spread out on the table and I was leaning Mari’s shoulder as my thoughts spun round and round. She was texting on her phone and someone was pointing.

“Mari’s turn, Mari’s turn!”

“I’m busy.” She waves her hand in the hair and I’m giggling into nothing.

“We should get a dog… and put it in a hat,” I’m mumbling, which I’m grateful for when I remember this moment hours later.

“Have her do it then,” someone jostled my shoulder. “You’re Mari’s friend, right?”  
  
I just nod unthinkingly, it was nice not to think. “I’m Feli-Felicity.”  
  
“Spin the bottle girl!” Someone puts my hand on a large brown bottle and I look around to everyone.

“As long as I don’t get the joker,” we were playing ‘cards spin the bottle,’ whatever card the bottle landed on you have to do. Ace was chug a bear, king was kiss someone, queen was order someone else around for the night (if they got a 2). Joker was act an embarrassing moment from your life.

I give the brown bottle a mighty spin. Someone whispered from beside me, “Get this kid some water.”  
  
Someone hands me a water, which I chug as we all watch the head of the bottle go around and around. I watch it steadily as I try to catch Mari’s eye again, she isn’t looking up.

“There it goes!” My eyes snap back into focus and the lip of the bottle slows one inch at a time, my eyes go wide, it hovers to a dead stop.

Someone claps me on the shoulder, “Woo! That’s the seven.”  
  
I lick my lips again, “what’s the seven again?” I look both directions, someone snickers.

“That’s seven minutes in heaven sweetie.”

My eyes go a little wide, “oh.”  
  
“Mari,” one of the older boys slaps Mari’s back, “Mari, take your little gayling to the closet.”

“What?” She blinks up, her pretty brown eyes framed by purple eyeshadow that day. Someone points down to the bottle and she makes a slight face, she glances back to me and I feel myself go pale.

She observes me for a moment and then takes my arm, “I guess I’m the chosen one.” She smiles a little bit and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

I stumble up and try to follow her to where someone was holding open a closet door and people were making woof whistles.

“Seven minutes,” someone cheered and held up their phone watch. I’m not looking at them, I’m looking at the back of Mari Santiago’s neck where her little dark neck hairs mixed with the blue ones.

I shiver, “you don’t have to-”  
  
The closet door swings shut just behind us and I try to find myself among the mess of impulses and sudden realizations. Is this how you get from point A to point B?  
  
Is this how you get a girl.

We both sit down at once and I open and close my mouth a for a second, “you don’t have to do anything.” I say wetly as I swallow.

Her eyes shine a little in the dark. “Duh.” She takes out her phone again, she’s not looking at me.

I struggle for something, for something. “You go to the play last year?” I almost want to bring up that the light effects were all me.

She just shakes her head, “nah.”  
  
My stomach sinks and I realize something that I didn’t want to say. I look down at my hands and flex my fingers back and forth.

Mari blows air of her mouth and I look up, “but, look.”  
  
“What?” I say too loudly for the cramped space.

“You’re actually pretty cute.” My mouth is open, but nothing comes out, she leans forward and flicks the hair off her forehead, “the crush is kinda cute.”  
  
I hold my breath for a long second and before I can protest that it I hoped I wasn’t too obvious, it all gets cut off. “Let’s play, they all want us to.”

She reaches over and I feel a soft press of lips against lips, an electric feel of a kiss in the dark, at a party with something buzzing through my system. I close my eyes and wait.

And wait.

Something swirls and chugs and sinks in me like the titanic, my face falls and the rest of me crumples from the inside out. I had done everything right, I had got the job, I had done the lines, I had gone to the party.

I went to the closet.

If I was with Dana I would make a joke that it was pretty ironica I was having my first gay kiss in a closet, but she wasn’t here. Instead, I had a grey empty feeling in the depths of my gut sinking in, no fireworks, no world-shattering touch.

Just, wet lips, cracked skin, the taste of mushy cigarettes and bad perfume. I try to lean into and tell myself this is what I wanted. But she tasted like smoke and something bitter.

I close my eyes and kiss a little harder, waiting, waiting, for it. I push her toward the wall and try again.

And then I hear a timer outside, “that’s it!” Someone calls, “come out love birds.”  
  
I look down at my hands again and Mari laughs, “woo,” she wipes her lips, “you’re kinda fierce,” she laughs again and I realize it’s because I pushed her back.

My first kiss was in a closet at someone’s house I didn’t know in a closet with a girl I had very very little in common with.

We crawl out of the closet and people laugh as I rub my eyes in the new light and Mari wipes her mouth. “Well that was something.”  
  
I start to stumble as I reach for my phone, “hey,” I wave, “I totally didn’t notice it was almost two.”  
  
Mari lifted her eyebrows, “was I that bad?”  
  
I laugh, “no.” I try to grin, “you were great.” I wink and she seems to preen at that, though I didn’t know how to tell her like it was nothing like I wanted. “But I think it sobered me up enough to realize that I’m super late.”  
  
“Well,” she turns around, “do you what you need to do.”  
  
I take some heavy steps to the door, “yeah… I’ll have to see at work.” My eyes are unfocused.

She’s shrugging and picking up her drink again, “see you around.”  
  
I nod and purse my lips as I fumble for my jacket and someone hands me a water bottle as I head for the door. In retrospect I wonder why no one called me an uber or asked if I’d be alright, I start walking home alone.

————

I’m sitting on a hill, the scratchy yellow grass under my ass and the faintest hint of the sun on the horizon, just a little golden light kissing the lip of the earth in the distance. I have two discarded water bottles next to me and I am staring blurrily out into the cityscape.

A clunky little yellow car passes in the distance and I wipe at my eyes again. The breeze felt barely there that day and something aches all over, especially in my chest.

I probably shouldn’t have walked home for an hour and a half, I probably shouldn’t have gone to sit on this hill, I probably shouldn’t have let my phone die after sending just one text. Another black car passes in the distance and hear the squeak of tires.

I lay my head on my arms and feel a dull pounding in the back of my skull, it was just one of those days. I feel my eyes droop down and only pause when I hear more soft footsteps.

“Feli?”  
  
I don’t react, I just clutch my dead phone in my hands a little harder. Dana wheels her bike up behind me and places it in the grass next to us.

“That bad, huh?”

I glance up ever so slightly, she was still wearing her striped pajama pants and a sweater from the college her sister when to, plus an ancient dodgers baseball cap. I slump to the side and put an arm over my eyes.

“I guess we’re even,” I say hoarsely, my voice feeling raw and delicate.   
  
“What’s that,” she nudges me with her foot.

“Now both of our first kisses sucked.”  
  
“Lord Feli,” she reaches down for me, “you look like a mess, up you go.”  
  
I groan at the hand placed in front of my face, “I’m still not feeling so hot.”  
  
“I know, I brought you water, an aspirin, and mouthwash.”  
  
That gets me slowly teetering to my feet. “Sometimes you are a good friend.”  
  
“Always!” She defends with slight laugh, “plus I want the juicy trainwreck details.”  
  
“It wasn’t a trainwreck,” I take the aspirin from her and chug it down. She grumbles something about ‘getting drunk for the first time without her.’ “It was…” I fade off and sigh heavily instead.

“Come on,” she takes my arm, “let’s get in the back of Deadman’s dead truck.”  
  
I stop in place and try to take the mouthwash from her instead, “I thought we both agreed that thing was haunted.”  
  
Dana adjusts her backward baseball cap, “then let’s go make friends with a ghost. It’s a night for firsts.”  
  
“Day,” I correct and start swishing around mouthwash for a minute.

Dana messages her temples, “in the truck. In the truck.” She chants and I make an exaggerated slumping motion before following her to the back of the once blue vehicle.

We climb into the truck bed and the thing creaks and heaves at us as we settle in among the vines and rust that decorated the inside. I wipe my hands down when we end leaning on the sides and staring at each other.

“It’s private now,” She leans forward, “tell me what’s up.”

I look off to the side, letting my headache pound softly and my heart sink. “There’s like four gay girls at our school.”  
  
“I guess,” she says slowly, “I’m still waiting one like, five of them to come out. You’ve seen the way Patsy looks at me.”  
  
“No, I mean,” I push my bangs back, “there’s only like five percent of the whole entire population that’s girls that like girls.” I frown deeply, “and how many of those are we actually compatible with? That actually live near us?” I feel my eyes welling up.

Dana reaches over, she takes my hand and squeezes it firmly, “Come on Fel,” she says softly, “look at it positively, I know you’re a romantic deep down, I’ve read your blog.”  
  
I feel the water started leaking out, I wipe at it angrily, “I’m just saying!” I rub my eyes down ruthlessly, “the odds aren’t even in our favor.”  
  
Dana’s face squished up into something indescribable, “I don’t think it’s good to think about.”

“I am thinking about it!” I mope back, “I’m thinking about how much I thought I liked Mariana Santiago and the fact that she’s just like… a super different person than me.”  
  
“What did you expect?”  
  
“Daaaaan,” I whine, “not helping.”  
  
She scoots closer to me and weaves our fingers together, “maybe that’s just how it is, maybe it’ll just be a little hard for us.” She holds my hand tightly, “but it’s not like it’s over. It’s not like… we can’t try again. That we can’t just look around us.”  
  
I raise my eyebrows and peer over to her, “look around us?”  
  
She shrugs loosely and doesn’t meet my eye, “if you think it’s not gonna work, then it’s not gonna work, you have to believe that it can happen Fel. Aren’t you supposed to be the positive one out of us?”  
  
I start to hum deeply, “and aren’t you the silly one of us?” I ask softly and she scratches her chin.

“We’re all a lot of things,” Our eyes meet hesitantly, she sprouts a grin, “and it sounds like you just had a really really bad first kiss.”  
  
I slump over, “and now I work at Pet’s World with her.”

Dana laughs with her hand over her mouth, “that is kinda funny.”  
  
“It’s kinda sad,” I hang my head, “I’m never gonna find love. Like, ever. I’ll go to college a virgin, and leave that way too probably. Maybe I’m not even gay?”  
  
“Ugh,” Dana pokes me, “sad Felicity is the worst.” She pokes me again, “she doesn’t even listen.” I lift my head and our eyes meet again, I see Dana searching for something there. “But I’m also the stupid one so what do I know.”

I lean toward her, “can I be the stupid one too?”  
  
She grins softly and I join her, “oh, you can definitely be the dumbest.”  
  
“I guess, I just have to,” I blink a couple times, “look around me.”

She opens her mouth, and then closes it, she bites her lip before almost stuttering, “Only if you want to…”  
  
Dana blushes delicately and I feel her squirm next to me, I feel my lips turn up. “I’m sure. What were you always saying? I just have to try.” We both stare at each other for a very long minute.

Something creaks in the truck, it moves me. I lift her hand up to my lips, kissing the knuckles there gently and I feel something I didn’t know existed squiggle in my gut. I wait for her to lift her chin again and then I keep leaning forward.

“Dan,” I say slowly, “only if you want to.”

We pressed forward and Dana gasped gently as I kissed her, small and perfect across the lips and I feel a tingle go through something deep inside of me.

It was a little dry and off center, but my heart had picked up this time, it melted and oozed and maybe I was sweating a little bit too much. But I feel it, the electric slide, the commercial in my heart that was advertising the maranga.

The little pinwheel that kept going around and around in my head that jammed and stopped, I kissed her, and the whole thing froze. The sunrises in my mouth and the fireworks shoot off as our lips move against each other.

We part for a moment before coming back together more firmly and harsh, she takes my face in between her hands and we come together like that for a long long moment.

She only snickers once into my mouth, “you, not gay?” She lifts her eyes with a snort, “ridiculous.”  
  
I bite my lip and look her in the eye, “Actually,” I say, “totally straight,” I kiss her bottom lip, “but I’m sure you could convert me.”  
  
She takes my hand, “I’ll do what I can.” She scoots closer, “We could call it a summer camp even.”

I look her up and down, “I always heard everyone at band camp was gay.”  
  
She wraps her arms around my neck and hoods her eyes, “we’ll have to make music then.”  
  
I push on her shoulder as I laugh and shake my head, “don’t be a dork.”  
  
“Make me!”   
  
We come together once more with the sun our back and rust on my jeans, but there’s something sweet and melting inside of me, rising at the same time. I kiss her, and I somehow make it from all the way behind the finish line to the start.

There were so many more points to reach.


	8. The Tadpole Witch

Enid was crying.

Big, fat, hot tears that stained her face with dirty streaks of mascara, mascara was $9.50 at the community store. Yet, here she was, her body rocking back and forth as she wasted her own $9.50 purchase.

She thought about how stupid it was that she was thinking about her black charcoal mist eyeliner, she was thinking about her shaking hands too and if she was uglier from crying. Her mother always said that crying made you ugly, made her nose squish up in one long bumpy ridge and her skin blotchy and red, mouth a jagged loud squiggle.

Nobody cried pretty anyway, that’s what Enid told herself.

She was not thinking straight, she barely thought about her mother anymore to begin with, but she was hunched over, crying around a brown package and looking off into nothing. It was almost her twenty-six birthday and she was feeling pretty stupid.

She has a walky-talky by her side and decides to push the heavy yellow mask off her face, it slid off with an unwieldy woosh, its own weight dragging it down to earth. It landed with a deep thud and Enid could finally wipe at her soaking cheeks.

“To hell with her,” she sniffed loudly to no one, “fuck her, fuck her to fucking fuck.” She curled up on herself and rocked back and forth, wishing she could take a lot of things back.

Enid was almost twenty-six, and she was now single for the first time in three years. Three years was too long, and her damn mascara was too expensive. The warm air licked her face and she knew she had to do something.

Her stomach hurt from the crying and she couldn’t bring herself to care, most monitors had said the air had been clear for decades now. Instead, she now looked off into the dense, smuggy waters and ginormous green trees on either side of her.

She always thought that they looked like they were reproaching her, like a tongue lashing on the horizon to all the mosquitoes and fireflies in the world. She took a deep breath and her hiccuping breath started to slow down.

It smelled faintly of bad eggs and antiseptics, it seemed to clear her head, a mixture of pure green earth and a rugged swamp smell that didn’t want you to like it and never would. Like garbage and hand soap.

She ran a hand through her short hair and let the world come back into focus, she gripped her hands tightly together. “Go to hell Stella.”

She hiccuped again and felt like doing something stupid, or that’s the feeling she assigned it afterward. She stood up on shaky legs once her body would allow it, her head was swimming. She leaves the brown package off to the side as she lurches forward like she was being pulled forward by a string in her collarbones that made the rest of her try to follow along limply.

One leg after the next down the small incline and arms flailing around her like she might take off if she flapped hard enough.

Enid splashed into the grungy brown water before she could think much of it.

Her boots are sucked into the soft mud like it might swallow her whole with just one step, luckily, her galoshes were slurped down and then hit something solid down below just in time. She decided it was trustworthy enough and took more steps with her eyes still streaming. She takes one labored step after the next off into the dark warm air.

This was definitely going to be a good idea.

She teetered back and forth through the low water and toward the plumy twisting trees and the buzz of various bugs that definitely wanted her blood. This was perhaps the best idea.

She kept hearing Stella’s voice in her head over and over again: no, Enid, no we can’t. I don’t want to see you when I get back. We just have to end it, now and cleanly. I know this is hard on the both of us.

Her own response rung in her head:  _hard on both of us?! you fucking cheated on me! And now you’re breaking up with me!_

That was somewhat the end of that traumatic conversation, Stella said a few more words like she was an adult talking to a child and then hung up.

Enid sniffed loudly and felt her feet slip forward as the water got deeper, darker. She remembered the nursery rhyme from childhood: further in and further out, the tadpoles grow big and stout, green as limes and big as cows, put one in your bowl and grow it strong. A-wish, a-wish, a-wash, they will grant you a wish of anything you want.

It had been a long time since Enid had seen a living creature with her own eyes.

And she had a wish alright.

It didn’t make complete sense, but she had already left her package on the side of the ride and was already splashing through the dank undergrowth of the swamp. She keeps her eyes glued to the waters, little tiny movements were rippling underneath.

“Huh,” she hums before focusing on the tails of little fish. She needed a tadpole. She takes several large steps toward a light patch where she could see little fast movements.

She trudges through the sludge and ignores the piercing squawks of birds above her head and ripples of the water from somewhere else. Her gut distantly sinks a little, she knew the thick black words written on her contract: do not stray from the path.

She was already here, and her mascara was already smeared.

She reaches for the sunpatch, there were the barest green shadows there, just on the surface of the muddy brown water. “Oh,” she says softly, her own eyes going wide.

It had been a long time. She reaches the splotchy strip of light, breathing quietly, like she should be quiet, like reverence wasn’t just a word in church. She dips her hands delicately into the water, statistics about germs and radioactive levels chime in the back of the hand.

She wiggles her fingers in luke-warm waters and a shudder goes down her spine, “ahaha,” she laughs gently and feels a strange joy. “Hello,” she greets as she sees a kicking little amphibian.

She had learned about the life cycle of frogs in science class, it felt like the first thing she ever learned, but the reality made her chest tighten, her smile widen. “Hi there.” She repeats as she dips her hand lower and lets the little oblivious creature swim into her cupped hands.

It was a fat muddy green creature with tiny tiny legs just sprouting out of the back, she slowly, gruelingly lifts it up to her eye level, she hadn’t stopped smiling. “Stella would never let me dream of this…”

She tries to push every thought of Stella away, under a rug and fifteen feet down. She places the tadpole back, it swims in frantic little circles before disappearing.

Enid reaches behind her and takes out a glass jar from her pack, the one she used to collect rainwater for research, for the white coats that needed more and more samples. They called her admirable for traversing the paved path between the two Sunspots, but Enid thought of it more of a breather, a relief from the glass walls of home.

She had been ecstatic to be chosen as a courier, though she’s not sure if they chose right as she eases her glass jar into the cloudy waters and allows a tadpole to kick into her capsule.

“There,” she exhales slowly, her mind feeling more clear and somehow lighter now. It did a little twirl inside her see-through walls and she laughs. “Lilac,” she says softly, “would you like to be Lilac?”

She didn’t know why she liked the name so much, the creature wasn’t even purple.

Enid looks down, considering capturing another little wiggly creature, and then her head jerks up.

_Sploosh_

She looks both directions, her mousy brown hair falling into her eyes as she swiveled around in circles, her palms get sweaty. “Hello?” She gasps, not speaking loud enough for anyone but her and the tadpoles to hear.

There was the sound of splashing to her left, “is anyone there?”

She seriously hopes no one will actually answer, she turns around instead and starts backing away, stumbling right and left, away from where she heard the splashing. She had a fairly developed sense of direction and manages to spot a shallow indent in the mud behind her- where she had come from.

She starts struggling against each suctioning step back away from the dancing light on the water. Her breath starts to come out in heavy gasps, not from the exertion but more factors and statistics in her head, the part of the contract that told her not to stray.

_Sploosh_

She hears another slosh of water and freezes in place, her eyes dragged to the left, she stops mid-exhale.

In the light, just across the way, a figure stood, still and alert with wide dark eyes that were just visible underneath her hat made of large fronds of woven leaves.

Enid’s mouth falls open, the girl was on two long sticks, her feet situated on platforms that keeps her poised above the water, a woman on stilts. There was a mud rubbed across her cheeks, probably to keep the sun off her skin.

Her thick hair was tied up behind her and she wore a heavy brown cloak with large leaves tied her wrists and feet, her hat was large and woven together with intricate knots and string. She had small pursed lips and iridescent silvery skin under the grime.

Her hair was dark and neatly tied out of the way, body lean and obviously poised to move, to act. Enid held her gaze for a very very long time, holding her breath as she made eye contact with this new Straggler of the woods.

Enid had never seen one of them before, people who didn’t make it into one of the early bunkers or outpost projects when the world moved back outside. She was something else entirely.

The priests call them lost, like adrift souls or leafs caught in a violent wind blown and scattered, Stragglers from after the Great Collapse. Enid felt like the one who was lost when she looked at the strange girl.

She must both know she’s not supposed to be there.

Finally, Enid turns sharply, readying herself to bolt, going from absolute stillness to the fastest gallop she can muster. “Oh my God.”

She feels the mud tugging at her boot and forces it forward anyway. She listens for movement behind her but doesn’t hear anything.

She doesn’t pause to check though, she just angles herself toward the edge of the trees and the gray paved path just beyond. “Ah!” The mud finally moves to claim her galoshes, vengeful and angry it cements her boots to the swamp floor and in her hurry she slips it off.

“Ack,” she sinks her toes into the velvety mud and heaves herself out of the water and onto the solid ground. She should go back to find her sinking boot, but the familiar grey road felt too calming just then. “Oh my God.”

She threads a dirty hand through her hair and finally checks if she was actually followed, she finds nothing but the imposing wall of trees behind her.

“Well,” she gulps and reaches into her pack, “alright.”

She flops down on the ground and recovers herself piece by piece, one little part at a time. She turns something cool and glass over in her hand, she had a tadpole.

——–

Enid didn’t know what she expected, she knew she had several more hours of walking to get back to her home base, but her radio was already fritzing by the time she got to a rest station.

“Attention courier Denison.”

“Yes?” She says quickly, a worry in the back of her head making her wonder if they could sense guilt in her tone.

“A southern storm is coming up the coast, keep inland.”

Enid’s face goes pale, “category five? A hurricane?” Hurricanes were common in this season.

She imagines having to run all the way home with one boot missing. She had managed to find her one ‘priority’ brown package she was delivering home, but her shoe was all but lost to the wilds.

“No,” the radio worker responds neutrally, “it looks like heavy rainfall and light winds, no emergency action required.”

She swallows thickly, “right.”

“Sunspot communications will keep in contact.”

“Right.” The radio goes quiet and she feels at least somewhat relieved, a hurricane right after straying from the path would surely be a bad sign- divine providence of the annoying sort.

She goes to feel the jar in her pack one more time and then continues walking straight ahead. The sky was a murky gray and sure enough, just as she secured her walkie back on her belt she feels the first pelt of a raindrop.

“Mmmm,” she hums angrily and starts to speed walk, getting out her folded rain jacket and throwing it over her head and shoulders. She covers herself and there’s nothing left to do but walk quickly through the rain.

She felt a little sick in her stomach, her thoughts start wondering back to Stella, Stella liked the rain. The water bore down on her, dripping down her face and filling her one good boot. “Three fucking years.” Her thoughts ran around in circles, “three whole fucking years.”

Enid didn’t know what she would have been doing in all that time, but something in her feels wasted, empty. Her stomach was sinking lower and lower.

She takes deep breaths as she thinks about what she’ll need to feed tadpoles, there must be a document on it in the archives. She maps out how she’d get a large tank for it and what kind of water to fill it with, then she was thinking about how much she hated hated Stella’s nose.

Her damn crooked button nose and honking laugh, how did she ever love that laugh? She gets angrier and angrier with each step, she broke up with her on their own private walkie-talkie channel.

She clenched her fists, she didn’t even do it in person.

The storm starts to downpour, sheets of warm rain coming down on her head as it almost pushed her sideways, “oof.”

She tries not to slide into the mud, her naked foot pricks slightly on some rocks and she starts to jump forward at an uneven pace. She knew the compound was at least still a mile away.

There’s a resting outpost before then of course, at the next bend in the road, a little hut where they left fresh water for couriers. She starts to jog through the heavy onslaught, wiping at her face constantly to keep it out of her eyes and see where she’s going.

At least her mascara was completely gone. Perhaps if Enid hadn’t been so angry or so distracted by the sheets of water hitting her face she would have noticed the figure coming up behind her.

She walks blithely ahead as she sees the shelter, pulling up her saggy wet pants and walking right into someone’s outstretched hand, “ah!”

She is so surprised she almost falls completely backward onto her ass and then almost away into the nothingness of the water behind her. Her mouth falls open and she makes out a short looming figure above her.

She tries to scramble backward, “I don’t have any goods!” She put her hands up defensively, lying through her teeth, though it was true she only had so many items on her. “Please.”

She recognizes the young woman from before, her heavy brown cloak also weighed down by rain, her face only kept dry by her large woven hat. She looks down at Enid and Enid stares back up skittishly.

“I,” her eyes search the air in front of her, “I’m sorry I went into your domain?” She offers weakly, The Straggler just frowns, she hopes the other woman wasn’t hungry.

She’s trembling slightly and she inches backward, the other woman in return takes a bold step toward her and holds something up. Enid pushes her soaking bangs back and her eyebrows skyrocket.

“My shoe!” She exclaims as the stranger held out her heavy black galosh boot toward her.

She reaches out quickly to grab it and get back her other footwear but the woman drew the boot back quickly and waved a single finger in the air reproachfully.

Enid makes a face at her. “What?”

The Straggler takes another step forward and points at Enid’s pack, Enid wrinkles her nose. “I don’t have any food right now, and I don’t think you need my walkie-talkie.” Or the brown package.

It was hard to tell through the thick downpour, but she thinks she sees the other woman roll her eyes.

“Do you even know how valuable those are?” A clear strong voice comes out of the other person.

Enid jumps violently, “you can talk!”

She is certain the woman is making a face at her, “are you serious? Anyway, let’s at least get to the Roof.”

“The what?”

“Get up,” she feels the woman kick her lightly, Enid was still looking her up and down.

“You can talk,” she says slowly and blinks a couple times.

“Sure can, Facility birdy. And I’m loving this conversation.” She turns her back on her, “now if you want your boot, please. This way.”

Enid felt like she was also engaging in ‘sarcasm.’ She’s a little baffled as she hobbles over toward her to the dry space underneath the corner outpost.

“I can’t believe you didn’t see me waving earlier, do you not have eyes?” She was grumbling, Enid was shaking her head.

“Who are you?” She finally asks and clutches her pack to her chest a little tighter. They both walk in out of the noisy rain water.

She turned her head slightly toward Enid, taking her hat off slowly to reveal her sharp features, “Andy Sootes.”

Enid stands there blankly, “What?”

“My name,” she snorts, “I don’t suppose you have one.”

“Uh,” Enid pushes her wet hair back, “Enid.” She says slowly, “Enid Denison.”

“Cool,” The Straggler, Andy apparently, said without twitching. “And before you ask, one of my parents came from the facilities, though most of us still speak english anyway. I don’t know why y’all keep assuming we grunt or something, it’s not like language died out.”

Andy seemed to be grumbling to herself and Enid was a little taken back.

“I’ve never talked to a Straggler before.” Or seen one until now, but that was a different conversation.

Andy blinks her wide-set dark eyes a couple times, “really? I had no idea.”

Enid glares at her for a moment, “what do you want?” She figured she was losing time just standing here, she didn’t want to be out of the Sunspot in both the rain and the night.

Andy points at her pack, “you took that from the water, right?”

“Oh,” Enid lifts her eyebrows, “yeah.” She reaches behind her and takes out the glass jar, “this is Lilac.” She peers into the muddy waters, “she’s just a tadpole.”

“Just a tadpole?” Andy shakes her head back and forth, “lady, do you know how many animals can actually survive out here? Especially in the damn water.”

Enid vaguely remembered the lessons on the rising PH levels decimating almost all life in the oceans, but also outlined how radioactivity seeped into the ground waters as well. Enid furrows her brow, “it’s been almost a century.” She looks at her pointedly, “can’t you just make more?”

Andy rolls her eyes, “they turned into frogs-”

“I know that!”

“And it’s a lot tastier than berry paste and leaves.”

“Gross,” Enid says with a huff, “I’m definitely keeping her if you’re just going to eat her.”

Andy throws her arms in the air, “what? Why?” She puts her hands on her hips and leans forward, “you have so much food at the facility-”

“Sunspot,” she corrects, “that’s it’s name.”

“Whatever,” she jabbed a finger at the glass jar, “why do you want it?”

Enid shifts from side to side, realizing that ‘I remembered an old nursery rhyme that said these things would grant wishes.’ She just stands there for a few seconds instead.

“None of your business.”

Andy’s lip curls back to reveal her surprisingly white teeth, “of course you’re like this.”

“Listen,” Enid takes a step back, “I need to get home.”

Andy crossed her arms, “do you even want your boot back?”

Enid pauses and mutely stares over at the boot still at Andy’s side. They were $88 at the community store, even if they were slightly different sizes.

Enid cocks her head to the side, “could I please have my boot back?” She ventures tactfully.

“Are you kidding me,” Andy grumbles, “no way. I don’t protect those tadpoles from scrawny birds and teeths for nothing.”

Enid scoffs softly, “just make more.”

“Just give me it back! Jeez, you must be one lucky trucker if you found them when you were just bumbling through the water.”

Enid doesn’t say anything as she turns around, “I have to go.”

“Wait!” She pauses and sees the girl reaching out to her, stepping out in front of her way, “if you’re not going to give me my frog, at least bring me something in return.”

Enid narrow her eyes slightly, observing her quietly. “Like what?”

The rain around them was letting up and Enid could see it coming down in an uneven little pitter patter on the roof now, slowing.

Andy was regarding her quietly, her mouth a tight line across her face. “Do you guys have…” She trails off and appears to be considering Enid a second time. “Bread?”

Enid lifts an eyebrow, “bread?”

“The grain stuff,” Andy says flatly, “my mom used to have some.”

“Oh,” Enid rubs the back of her neck. “I’m really not supposed to bring food outside of the compound. Or um, do that.”

Andy scowls at her, “it’s just bread.”

“It’s uh, huh.” Enid tries to parse through this request, she had never considered something like this before.

Andy taps her foot on the wet pavement, “didn’t you already break the rules? You facility birds aren’t supposed to go off the path, I know that.”

“Oh,” Enid realizes she had a good point, “well, I mean, yes?”

“Bread,” Andy gives an astute nod. “One loaf, free of charge. And you’ll get your boot back.”

Enid stands there awkwardly for a minute, “and if I don’t?”

Andy breaks into a jagged crooked smile, “I’ll eat you.” Enid takes an abrupt step backward, walking into the pole behind her. Andy laughs, “jeez, I’m kidding. But I could make your next trip across here harder.” She looks at her steadily, “and you did steal my tadpole crop.”

“Ugh,” Enid says lowly, “fine. But not now. They always watch me when I come home anyway.”

Andy regarded her carefully, “really?”

“Yeah, they call it a safety protocol-”

“No, I mean, you’ll really bring me bread from your weird yellow palace?”

Enid frowns slightly and then decides to nod, “I mean, why not. I would like my boot back.”

Andy put a finger up and leans inches to her face, “I’ll hold you to that.” The other woman begins to turn around, “I remember faces.”

“Alright.” Enid begins to wave and Andy was already dashing back toward the water and her stilts that she left on the side of the road. “Alright.”

Enid straightens her wet shirt out and here’s the crackle of her radio, “you landing soon courier Denison? It’s getting late.”

She catches her breath for a moment before responding, “yes ma’am, almost there, rain made it a delay.”

“Well hurry.”

She clips her walkie back in and starts trekking forward, she was still missing her boot she realizes,  _and_  just made a strange deal with someone who ate frogs and used stilts.

“Weirdo.” She sighs and at least realizes she had stopped thinking about Stella.

————

Enid was throwing a ball at the wall across from her, it bounced back into her hand with a loving sting, she then tossed it forcefully back and hit the wall again with a heavy ‘thwap.’

They were new walls, a new mirror on the vanity, a new window sill, a new empty floor to sit on and through balls at empty spaces across from you in. Enid was in her very first place by herself.

It had a lot of space to throw balls in.

She didn’t know how Stella got them new room assignments so quickly, but she had a feeling it was because the new girl she was dating worked in admin. Just the thought of her leaving Enid for some pretty bureaucrat with a pencil skirt made her feel sick, like her stomach might flip itself over.

Like she wanted to sleep for 15 hours straight.

“Ugh,” Enid lies back down on the floor and mushes her palms over her eyes, this was becoming ridiculous. She only manages to convince herself to get back up when she glances at the clock and realizes it’s time to feed Lilac.

She rolls over on her stomach and crawls over to the giant tank she had talked her way into from the junker guys at the community store. No one apparently wanted the thing for ages now and they were happy to give her the ten gallon empty glass tank

Enid figured it would do.

She carefully sprinkles in green lettuce and crushed peas into the water part of the tank and watches Lilac come out from under her dead leaves to investigate and nibble at them.

“There you go girl,” Enid peers in and studies her, “eat up. Get strong, I have one hell of a wish for you.”

Lilac seems to ignore her and Enid heaves herself listlessly out toward the window, maybe there were shooting stars she could try for first. Instead, she sees a small flickering fire outside of the glass solar panel walls that formed a dome over the compound.

Enid blinks a couple times, there was a figure standing next to the dancing redish-orange light. Her mouth falls open, “no.”

She recognizes a large woven green hat even from here, so Andy was keeping her promises. Enid scowls and balls her hands up, “it’s just bread.”

She realizes that Andy could probably now see her too. She tugs open the window with great effort and begins to wave out, “get out of here.” She hisses quietly with her best scolding tone.

Andy just seems to wave back loosely and Enid guesses that she probably can’t hear her, and she was probably also messing with her as she waves back happily.

Enid takes a deep breath and exhales, “fine then.” She closes the window, “deal with you in the morning.”

It had been three days, Enid still wasn’t used to being single, at the edge of the compound, and being stalked apparently now.

———

Enid was staring down at a very blank face with streaks of mud plastered across her nose. She had a greenish pallor to her skin and edged, thin features, she wasn’t particularly big.

She had her arms folded across her chest and was regarding Andy coolly, “you know it’s my day off.”

The other woman kicked a stray rock in front of her, “you’re welcome then.”

Enid scowled slightly, “to go outside into this humid nightmare instead of sleeping in?”

Andy put both hands behind her head, “I gave you an excuse to get out of the facility for a while. You’re welcome.”

“Ugh,” Enid messaged the bridge of her nose before looking up, “where is my boot?”

Andy frowned, “where is my bread?”

She blew her bangs off her forehead and swung her messenger bag around, she unclasps it slowly and presents the contents: one full loaf of wheat bread. “As promised.” She says dully.

“Well,” Andy seems to perk up, “this way then.”

She turns around and Enid is forced to follow her, hugging the solar panel glass windows as they wind their way around the building. Enid was lucky she knew a guy that would let her out here so late at night, no questions asked.

“How’s my tadpole?” Andy asks blithely.

Enid just picks dirt from underneath her fingernails, “Lilac is good. She tells me she’s especially happy to not being eaten.”

“I wait until their frogs first, dummy.”

“She’s especially happy to not be eaten when she’s a frog then.”

“Oh facility birdie,” Andy tisks, “how little you know.”

“Really?” Enid stared up at the deep churning grey-green sky. “I’m being patronized by the woman who stole my boot.”

“You’re the one that left it,” she says with a little scoff.

Enid gives a heavy sigh, “you freaked me out.”

She could feel Andy rolling her eyes as they approach a little tent by the side of the solar panels near Enid’s apartment on the other side. “Why were you even off the path to begin with?” She sniffs, “were you really that into finding tadpoles?”

“Uh,” Enid scrunches her nose up, “something like that.”

Andy looks over her shoulder at her, “were you trying to get eaten by a swamp monster?”

Enid makes a face at her, “there are swamp monsters?”

Andy gives a rough laugh, “well, they have teeth alright. I would try to take more of them down if they didn’t taste so awful.”

“Right,” Enid scratches her head, “well not that.”

They both pause outside of Andy’s tent and stand there for a minute, Andy tilted her head to the side, “were you trying to catch the shrinking sickness? Or were you just being a regular dumb facility bird and trying to-”

“Whatever, look, my girlfriend broke up with me and I was having a rough day. Can we drop it?” She says plainly and doesn’t meet Andy’s eye.

“Oh,” she hears a surprised sound, “really?”

“Yes really,” Enid puffed her chest out, “I’ve had a couple girlfriend’s, don’t sound too surprised.”

“No, not that,” Andy furrowing her brow, “I just always thought you were, you know, assigned.”

“Assigned what?” She asked curiously as she tilts her head to the side.

Andy struggles with something before continuing, “mates. Like some sort of lottery system or matchmaking deal.”

“You thought we had arranged relationships?” Enid says blankly as she studies her distantly, her wide eyes and curious nose. It wasn’t like Stella’s nose, it was small and somewhat smushed back.

“I don’t know,” Andy tugged at her long wild ponytail, “it seemed like a thing you would do.”

“Nope,” Enid put her hands on her hips before letting out a hot breathe, “I guess we all really don’t know anything about each other.”

“Well,” she sees Andy bend down and pick up a plastic boot from out of her hut, “sorry to hear about your breakup I guess.”

Their eyes meet and Enid shifts from foot to foot, “thanks?”

Andy let’s out a little laugh, “don’t sound too surprised.” She put the shoe out, “I can be sensitive.”

“Honestly, everything about you surprises me.”

“I don’t know why,” Andy says as she flips her hair back over her shoulder, “people are people, it’s not like we turned into mutant zombies while you holed up in your hidey hole.”

“But… I kinda thought you did?” Enid says carefully, “I definitely thought you at least didn’t make clothes and speak.”

“Jesus!” Andy exclaimed, “don’t make too many assumptions I guess.”

Enid shook her head, “sorry sorry.”

“I just wanted bread, and now I get a whole slew of Facility Talk. You guys,” Andy gives sprouts a crooked little smile, “really need to get out more.”

That earns Andy a little laugh from her, “fair enough.”

Andy put her hand out, “I mean, there’s not so many of us as there are you.” She looks up dreamily at the sky, “I assume that’s why you get bread.”

“Huh,” Enid says plainly as she reaches into her bag, “I guess I never thought about it.”

Andy looks back down, “You don’t say.”

Enid wags a finger at her, “I’m going to tell the whole compound that Stragglers are all smartasses if you keep this up.”

Andy laughs this time, “works for me!”

They chuckle and Enid reaches down to hand over the hunk of brown bread, “enjoy.” She says blankly, “cost me $25 bucks.”

“Oh I will,” Andy rubs her hands together, “and I’ll let you keep my frog.”

“You’re very generous.” She says flatly and Andy snorts.  
“I know, but don’t tell anyone.” Enid can’t help give a small smile, she rubs her arm before turning around again. Andy looked very fixed on her bread at that moment.

She lets out a small sound, “See you around Straggler.”

Andy waves back, “Same to you song bird.”

They nod at each other and it feels a little weird to part this way, but she was one boot richer.

———-

Enid was still getting letters from Stella.

Letters like ‘sorry’ and ‘I wish we could have ended it differently’ and the worst ones of ‘you were just never home,’ Enid tore those ones up and spent an hour looking at the ceiling.

“Just a day trip,” she says to herself, “just a couple hours.”

She leaves Lilac with extra food for the day and heads toward the door, “be good.” She says to the little creature that was already sprouting longer and longer legs. “I’ll be back by nightfall.”

The other Sunspot was just a days walk back and forth, but Enid was scheduled that day. She ends up picking up an extra shift anyway, being sure to avoid the admin office where she’s certain ‘Nina’ the bureaucrat is stationed.

Nina. The girl who wasn’t ‘always gone.’

Enid grumbles darkly to herself and finds only one bundle of letters to take across the swamp, she accepts it gladly. “Maybe I’ll get more tadpoles.” She muses to herself as the wide glass doors reinforced by layers on layers of plexiglass open one inch at a time.

She was decontaminated by water and soap before and after every trip, but Enid was used to it by now, the nude scrubbing, rubbing her skin raw and radiation check after each journey. She always told herself it was the price she was more than happy to pay.

And maybe it was, she stretches her arms open wide and large as she swells in the rare brilliant sun overhead. The compound was made to work on the barest amount of sunlight, but getting the real thing felt like a dream.

“Aw,” the sun caresses her face and she already feels a spring in her step, “fantastic!”

The great Fire war was a hundred years ago, but the skies were still filled with the ash and dust that all of those bombs kicking up debris into the atmosphere. It plunged the earth into a dark age, but the thing about life is that it wants to live, that it seeks to keep going.

She walks down the green path on either side of her and gingerly takes a sip of her water.  
“Hey,” she almost spits it out again.

Enid looks over both of shoulders before she sees a figure waving at her from just off the side of the path, the figure cheers at her, “bread girl.”

Enid’s mouth hangs open slightly, “tadpole witch.”

Andy jogs up to her with an almost-smile on her face, “witch?” She asks curiously as they stand in the bright sunlight.

Enid stands up straight, “like in the nursery rhyme?”

“What.” Andy looked at her blankly.

“Nevermind,” Enid shook her head to dislodge the thought, “I should get on my delivery route. Thanks for stopping by?”

“I came to walk with you.” Andy says simply and Enid raises her eyebrows.

“Why?” She tilts her head the side, “not that you can’t I suppose.”

Andy puts her hands out, “what would you say for regularly trading bread for junk I find?”

Enid wrinkles her nose, “I’m not so sure. I don’t need that much, uh, junk.”

Andy pats her on the back roughly, “well then,” she sings, “I’ll have to change your mind.”

Enid began walking, “only if you can keep up.”

Andy laughs, “don’t even with me Facility Bird.”

“Really?” Enid gives a half-smile, “because I bet I can beat you to the next stop.”

“Oh,” Andy says loosely, “girlie, try not to make bets you can’t-”

“Go!” Enid pumps her legs as she starts running, she hears Andy dashing to keep up.

“Wait!”

She feels her lungs almost burst as she sprints to the shelter they talked in almost a fortnight ago. She’s laughing and flushed as she races full tilt ahead of the other strange woman.

It seemed to work.

Though she did lose the race in the end.

——–

Enid couldn’t necessarily pinpoint when it happened, but at some point she suddenly had a traveling companion, an obnoxious one at that, but an expected presence. Sometimes her heart even sank a little when Andy was late or left early.

Andy started walking her back and forth on her mail trips, telling jokes and badgering her for rations of milk or honey. Enid realized she started to give them to her free of charge anyway.

She felt like one of them was getting the raw end of the deal, but she couldn’t tell who, or if it was either of them.

“So tell me again,” Enid was walking with her almost a month later, it was drizzling slightly. “The tadpole is supposed to grant you a wish?”

“I really regret telling you anything about this.”

Andy was grinning at her widely, “a witch who lets the children make one wish on the frogs they grow, but will eat the kids if they make more than one.”

“Yes, yes,” Enid tugs on her bag, “that’s how the song goes.”

“Wild.”

“Come on Andy, it was just a silly thought I had,” she tried to smooth over the other girl. “It’s not serious.”

Though she was very attached to Lilac at the point, she had done everything to grow her into a full fledged frog, next to her mirror just like the nursery rhyme said to do.

“Right right,” Andy waved her hand in the air, “right after that dick Stella broke up with over the walkie.”

Enid hunched over slightly, “yeah. Then.” She says darkly, “though she keeps trying to come by my place now.”

“A dick!”

“She says she feels bad,” Enid looks up into the slight drizzle, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t even think about Enid,” she shook her shoulder, “that leads to the jaws of owning at least four my tadpoles.”

She laughs, “I’ll try and keep my dating life on the DL then. I don’t have room for any more frogs.”

Andy nods astutely, “Exactly.”

Enid snorts and can’t help but look over at her slightly, “how about you?” She finally ventures, “what’s your dating life?”

Andy lets out a heavy laugh, “right, good one.”

“I’m serious! There must be someone else out here.”

Andy’s mouth falls slightly, it becomes a hard line, “not really.” She looks off into the distance, “my brothers and sisters live a couple acres out, I see them most weeks, but…”

They glance at each other and something rubs at the inside of Enid’s mind, “why aren’t there more of you?”

Andy raises both eyebrows, “there are, I think.” She says simply, “but not around here.”

Enid opens her mouth and licks her already damp lips, “what?”

Andy frowned deeply, “I can’t believe you don’t know,” their eyes meet.

“Know what?” She ventures steadily.

“Birdy, the facility clears us out,” she rolls her wrists in the air, “your precious Sunspot can’t handle us squatting even a couple feet away from them.”

“Oh,” Enid scratches the back of her head, “that’s uh, oh.”

“Yeah.” Andy shakes her head, “I can’t believe you didn’t know.”

“I thought you all were all wildmen!” Enid peers at her quietly, “how did you escape being cleared out then?”

Andy winks, “I’m clever,” she puffs out her chest, “And I get this whole place to myself plus frogs I can sell at market day if some people wouldn’t steal them.”

She grins softly, “It was just one!”

They laugh a little bit, though Enid’s mind wonder’s back to the fact she just learned. The compound cleared out Stragglers, even ones that had once belonged to the Sunspot itself.

Enid doesn’t look at her, she wondered how many people actually could live out here, she had always been told all of them died or went crazy from radiation poisoning. Or worse. She signed a form saying she wouldn’t stray from the path, or be out here too long.

She sucks on her bottom lip and feels her gut drop slowly.

“So,” Andy says slowly, looking up the sky casually, “want to come to my hut tonight and roast stuff? It’ll be fun.”

Enid turns to her slowly, eyeing her as they approach Enid’s home. “Roast stuff?”

“Yeah,” she shrugs, “like crickets. They are great roasted, got that crunch.”

Enid studies Andy’s face, it had a false kind of bravado to it. “At your place?”

“I just said that.”

“Andy Sootes,” Enid says slowly, “are you asking me out?”

Andy’s mouth opens and closes and tugged her large hat down over her face, “maybe?” She peers back at her, “I mean, I am only if you say yes. Otherwise, ha! Psych.”

Enid lets out a loud laugh, “okay!” She reaches over to catch Andy’s hand before she can dart away. “Burning stuff in a fire date.”

She beams and Andy’s face was slightly red under her sunscreen. “Yeah.” She bites her lip, “wear your good boots.”

She chuckles and feels her heart pick up, shouting at her loudly in a steady bah-dum-dhum-duh. Loud and thudding in her ears, Andy squeezes her hand back.

It was a good walk.

——–

Andy had seven brothers and sisters, she said it was because her parents ‘definitely loved each other too much.’ Bread and butter was her favorite meal, she was growing her hair out so she could one day strangle a swamp monster with it.

She kept very good care of her teeth and regularly bartered for hundred-year-old sealed toothpaste tubes since she watched her grandma lose all of her teeth and then some. It was a learning experience.

Her mom was kicked out the Sunspot, the one across the way for reasons she wouldn’t tell Enid, and she had a laugh that was starting to grow on her. Not in the way she was charmed by Stella’s laugh but something different, something warm and gradual in her belly, that rose and fell melodically.

It was all different this time.

And she should have seen it coming.

It was a brisk fall night, it never became too terribly cold down this way, but Enid could feel the coolness grating into her bones, a moist dampness that made her shiver.

They sitting facing the compound with their backs to a dying fire, behind them, Enid blows on her chilled fingertips.

“Want my coat?” She heard Andy say, looking at her in a very particular way.

Enid turned to her slowly, “don’t you own just that one?”

Andy wrinkled her nose at her, “I own two and a half thank you very much. The other one just happens to look just like this one.”

“Alright,” she puts her arms out, “I won’t say no then.”

Andy folded her arms across her chest, “oh no no, I don’t think so.” She gave a teasing smile and leaned in toward her, “that was a one time offer.” Her warm breath almost reached her cheek.

“Well,” Enid gulps softly, “I’m sure we strike up some sort of deal.”

Andy ran her hand down Enid’s spine, rubbing her hand down the middle of it and making her shiver for different reasons now.

“At least two and half parts of a deal,” Enid adds in a low drowsy tone, her face tilting slightly to the side and lips parting softly.

“What of kind deal?” Andy says teasingly, stroking her short hair fondly, “make me an offer.”

She reached out between them, her fingers ghosting over Andy’s cheek, “you’ll have to settle.”

“Darling,” she whispers hoarsely, “I’m not.”

Enid closes the small gap between them easily, Andy’s skin felt soft and salty underneath hers, devoid of mud for once and tasting electric. She tilts her head as they come together in a heavy bright kiss.

She leans into it, letting her body be wrapped into her arms and lips melt into her sugar sweet touch, her insides turn to jelly and Enid feels a fresh shaking feeling inside of her. This was it, a glowing hard kiss that left her senseless and laughing.

She feels her skin is flushed when they part, flushed and red and she’s giggling. “Well alright then.”

Andy was looking up at the barely visible moon, she hums a nonsensical little tune as she looks up at the top of the dome of the compound.

“The best deal I’ve made in weeks,” she says teasingly and licks her lips.

Enid puts her arms around her neck, “let’s make another.” They fall back down into the dark and into each other’s arms.

————–

Enid felt high on something she couldn’t describe, her stomach fluttered, her palms got sweaty at random thoughts, she put salt instead of creamer in her coffee that morning by accident. Her thoughts were running around on memories that made her sit down on the couch and just smile at the wall.

She couldn’t even eat her daily rations, something was definitely wrong, but mostly it felt right.

“Oh Lilac,” she says slowly as the little frog looks blankly back at her, “did you really do all this?”

Lilac’s gullet fills slowly and Enid doubts it, she laughs at herself instead and lies down on the couch with a sigh.

Then she hears a firm knock on the door, “Enid,” a voice calls, “Enid, it’s me, we need to talk.”

Enid sits upright on her couch and lifts her eyebrows, “Stella?” She waits for the usual bile rising in her throat and tightening her chest, but it doesn’t come. “Sure.” She says slowly as she bounces back to her feet.

Enid goes over and opens the door, “what’s up?”

Stella was standing with her back completely upright and her blonde curls cascading down her shoulders. She looked made-up and she was carrying a brown box in her hands.

“I’ve been trying to return this to you for months,” she says hotly but there was some strain underneath it.

Enid scowls slightly, “I already told you I don’t want it. It’s just old clothes and a toothbrush.” She looks away, and pictures of them. “I don’t need it.”

“Well I don’t want to pay the recycling fee,” she pushes it toward her.

Enid bunches her fists up and stares back at her with a heated glare, then she lets the tension release from her shoulders. “Okay Stella.” She says slowly, “thanks for bringing it over.”

She didn’t say it in a friendly tone, but it was a start.

She reaches out to take the box of assorted goods but Stella holds firmly onto it, “there’s one more thing.” She doesn’t meet Enid’s eye as she says that, she pursed her lips.

Enid messaged her temple, “What is it Stel?” She flinches when she realizes she used her nickname.

Stella stands completely still, her posture wide and stiff. “I actually came to return this to you last night…” She trails off and Enid watches her face carefully.

“And,” Enid shifts from side to side, “I wasn’t home, yeah.”

“I know,” Stella says slowly and seems to struggle with something back and forth. “But I was on the catwalk.”

Enid lifts her eyebrows, it was a glass catwalk that looked out to the outside.

“Is that so.” She keeps her tone even. “Well…”

“Enid,” Stella says sharply, finally leaning in toward her, “you know I still care about you, you know that, right?”

“Not this again,” she reaches for the door to close it in her face.

“I saw you out there!” She says with a near shrill whistle, “I saw you with some… some Straggler?”

Enid freezes, her heart thumping in her chest. “What of it?” She meets her gaze challengingly, “It’s my business. They’re not that different from us you know.”

Stella just shook her head, her blonde curls bouncing back and forth, “I care Enid! And this isn’t good.”

Enid rolled her eyes, “it’s not your business, not anymore.”

Stella took a step into the apartment, “you could bring in diseases. You could get yourself killed out there.”

“Stella, you don’t even know what you’re talking about.” She drew herself up, even if the other woman was a head taller than her with her heels on. “And I’m not interested in what you have to say.”

Stella’s eyes become slits on her face, “too bad.” She shoves the box at Enid so she’s forced to take it, “I’m reporting this.” She says dryly, “for your own good.”

“Don’t you dare.” Enid almost tosses the box off onto the ground to stop her. “I’m not some little girl you can mess with on a whim.” She bares her teeth, “she’s good to me.”

“You think she’s good for you,” Stella turns away, “you don’t even know what she is.”

“Stella, don’t you fucking dare.” She goes running after her, but Stella was already running away, her long legs stretching her out across the catwalk and toward the exit. Enid chases her as long as she can before she’s winded.

“Dammit,” she curses, “goddammit.”

She tries to start thinking of her defense.

———-

Enid is pacing back and forth in her apartment, should she leave? Should she leave right now? She had never lived outside these walls, she had barely spent a night outside of them.

She grabs for her pack and thinks better of it, she’d have to put Lilac in her pocket or something- she would have to steal a bread maker for Andy at the very least.

Her thoughts are racing in circles faster than she can reign them in when she hears a knock on the door.

“Miss Denison,” a clear stern voice addresses her, “we would like to talk.”

“Police?” She says sharply, “already?”

She grabs for her pack and her frying pan, “I didn’t do anything wrong.” She calls through the wood.

“We didn’t say you did.” A clear masculine voice replies, it sounded like the compounds priest and she can’t make any more sense of that.

“Stay back!” She chokes again, “I don’t want any trouble.”

A pounding comes at the door, “Enid Denison,” it repeats, “open the door.”

Enid backs up to the nearest wall, yielding the pan in front of her and holding herself perfectly still. “Stay back…”

“We’re coming in.”

The door bursts open and she knows that’s not a good thing, she bares her teeth as they tell her what she’s being detained.

——-

Enid was put on house arrest, she was put under house arrest and given a black eye for her troubles. She started to curse Stella with every breath.

“Hasn’t she done enough to me?” She spits, “wasn’t it enough.”

She paced back and forth, heels digging into the carpet and heavy house arrest bracelet weighing down on her right foot. They hadn’t been in contact with her since they put her in her special ‘detainment.’

She was apparently waiting to be charged with something, be subject to the rule of law as the officer had said. But Enid had a feeling this wouldn’t end in her favor. She had broken the rules of going off the path, of making contact with potentially ‘hazardous’ individuals.

She was under house arrest.

Her mind started to wonder, wonder to the night before which had gone from dreamlike to a nightmare once she got home. She started to watch out the window.

She watched carefully at the edge of the forest and started drawing carefully made signs out of the paper she bought for the last Emergence Day holiday. She writes carefully over the letters.

‘LEAVE,’ and ‘TURN BACK.’

She starts writing an explanation as well, she balls up and tosses out the painful one that just read ‘I DON’T WANT TO SEE YOU ANYMORE.’

She was busy trying to hide her black eye with a thick concealer when she sees it, the flash of movement, the gentle wave of a hand. Andy was calling out to her, probably curious to why she was still inside after they agreed to meet again that night.

Enid holds up the sign above her head, ‘LEAVE’ it read, ‘NOW.’

Andy just cocks her head to the side and mouths ‘what.’

‘I WAS CAUGHT,’ she gestures wildly down and Andy seems to acknowledge the clunky detection bracelet on her ankle. ‘GO.’

Andy just shakes her head and mutters something that Enid can’t catch. Then the other woman just mouths ‘no.’

Enid balls up her fists and holds up her final sign ‘I’M STUCK HERE!’ It read loudly, ‘IT’S OVER.’ She smeared that one a little bit, but at least it was the painful truth instead of the other one.

She sees color rise in Andy’s cheek, she slowly lifts her hand to her right eye, pointing at Enid’s eye as well. ‘Did’ she mouths slowly, ‘did they do that to you?’

Enid pauses for a very long moment before nodding, they share a tense moment.

Andy raises both hands and starts banging on the glass, hitting it fiercely with her hands and shouting something. Enid shakes her head frantically, “stop!”

She can’t hear her.

Andy keeps hitting the surface, yelling vaguely before turning around, Enid exhales as she seems to give up. Andy then goes to pick up the largest rock she can from the side of the water and runs headlong at the wall, she smashes the rock across the surface.

Enid gapes, a small, ever so slight, crack appeared on the surface. “No,” she says gently before Andy brings the rock down again and sickening crunch sounds. Two more cracks burst from the spot and a flicker of hope lights up in Enid’s chest, and then she hears the sirens.

“Andy!” She cries, the doors to the compound were being opened. “Get out of here!”

Andy didn’t stop, she took the huge object and lands another blow on the solar panel, “ahh!” Enid can hear her yelling now.

“Stop,” a crowd of police storm out of the compound, “put your hands in the air.”

“Stop where you are.”

Andy said something back to them and Enid did not think it was nice.

“Leave her alone!” Enid is not the one banging on the glass, hitting her own window and gesturing wildly, “leave her alone.”

Andy gets in one profound sucker punch before a group of police grab her and punch her in the gut, she keels over like a small leaf against a boulder. Enid feels her cheeks, they are wet, her body shaking as sobs start to rock through her body.

“Andy,” she says hoarsely, “Andy…”

They start to bring the Straggler in.

————

Hour one: tears, she can’t stop crying

Hour two: banging on the bracelet, Enid tries to get up the gumption to break her own ankle

Hour three: Enid holds a pillow close and screams into it

Hour four: a voice tells her she ‘brought this on herself,’ Enid starts piling her furniture against the door

Hour five: they come to her door, she needed to come identify the violent Straggler

——-

“Ma’am, come out with your hands up,” a radio voice echoes in Enid’s small apartment, static shifting out from the other side and Enid curling up on herself in the corner of her bedroom. The last stronghold.

“Fuck off!” She was running out of options.

“Come out now or we will be forced to use force. It is only a proceeding ma’am.”

“I know what it is…” She says softly, to herself, “and you can go to hell!”

She hears the door rip open and Enid dashes for the window, “Grab her!” A strong hand comes down around her wrist, Enid twists out of it and jumps on her bed.

“I won’t go quietly you bastards!” She backs away from their grasping hands and batons.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” one of the police officers steps forward and Enid makes a sharp noise as he rattles Lilac’s cage, which she had pushed inside her own room. The frog leaps onto the wall as the enclosure shakes.

“Don’t hurt my frog!” She bellows and stops just in time to see the officer halt and look back to where Lilac stood.

He jumps back, “is that an outside contaminant?”

Enid’s eyes go wide, a female police officer backs away from it too, “this is a capital offense Miss Denison.”

“This,” Enid takes a step toward to the tank, “this is a frog from the outside.”

They stare at her, wide-eyed. It occurred to Enid that none of them had been outside, they had all been told it was full of radioactive sludge and animals made of poison. That it killed you without a mask on.

She puts her hand into the tank, she picks Lilac up delicately. “Stay back,” she warns dangerously, “if you take a single step toward me you’ll be dead in three hours.” She pushes the green frog in their direction, “she’s from the swamps.”

They flinch and Enid sees her chance, “don’t make a move.”

“What are you doing?” The lead officer barks at the frozen cops, “catch her!”

Enid doges another pair of arms, but the distraction had been enough. She dives underneath their legs and bounces to her feet. “Lilac,” she rushes toward the open scattered front door and took out a glass jar from her pack. “Thank you.”

She places her carefully into the container before sprinting out the door and across the catwalk toward city hall. She could already hear yelling from that direction.

“No more,” she knew where the jail was, she had visited her father there once after one of his drunken night. Enid hears cries.

“We don’t want a Straggler here!”

“She’s spreading her diseases!”

A crowd was gathered outside the jail, their hands flailing before several stone steps.

Enid slips through their ranks, climbing through the center of the crowd and plowing her way toward a small figure tied up to a post outside. She had bruises blooming across her face.

Enid guessed that someone had refused to let her inside the police station, she could be radioactive after all, and now they were at an impasse. Enid rushes up the steps below them.

“Let her go!” Enid says shrilly, “Let her go or I poison all of you.” She holds up the frog up high in the air.

It takes a moment for anyone to hear her, but Enid took another step up and raised her voice, “You’ll have hours left!”

Someone turned toward her and boomed, “is that from the outside?”

Enid holds the glass jar even higher.

“This is an outside animal!” They didn’t have frogs in the compound. “And she’ll fucking ruin you if you don’t let that woman go.”

A dozen eyes are on her, slack-jawed and in awe, some were already whispering frantically among themselves, two had already peeled off in the opposite direction.

Enid rose her voice, “don’t. Test. Me.”

“Let the Straggler out,” someone prompts in a hush.

The police officer next to Andy was pale, Andy herself was wide-eyed and looking up at her slowly, like she couldn’t believe it.

“NOW!” It takes a very long moment of staring and frozen glances.

“Poison,” ripples went through the crowd.

“It’s from the outside.”

“It’ll kill us.”

“Look at it, it’s even green.”

Enid didn’t completely understand it, but she understood all the things she had heard over the years, not even Enid’s job was well-broadcasted. No one came or left as far as they knew.

Enid put her hand on the lid, a gasp goes through the crowd and someone starts waving at her.

“Don’t do it!” They call and Enid growls at them.

“Let. Her. Go.” She starts to turn the lid and a couple people turn toward the jail post.

“Let her out!” Jostling and pushing follows as a citizen forces his way through the group and toward Andy. He grabs the keys from the pale frozen officer and jams the key into the handcuffs.

“Take her!” He says pointedly, “we don’t want her here anyway.”

Enid couldn’t believe it, her heart races as she gets down from the steps, as she circles the group and reaches for Andy. Their hands meeting softly, slowly.

A frog might really save her life.

They stand for a minute, hands touching and faces glowing at each other, “thanks.” Andy finally says, just above a whisper.

“A frog may save both our lives,” she says ironically, whispering back for just a moment, a smile playing just underneath her lips.

And then she hears a clattering of feet behind them, “get those two!” The police had caught up to Enid. “Stop them!”

They turn and run, run to the gate, run to the button and watch as the doors swing up with people screaming and running the other direction. Andy takes her hand and leads back out, back out to the bright day outside and their own flushed breaths.

“Andy,” she says over and over again, “Andy, Andy, Andy.”

“I know,” she takes her face in hers as they slow down, no one was following them outside just yet. “My tadpole witch.”

She laughs almost hysterically, pressing a soft kiss to the side of her mouth, and then the turn around before anyone can dash out to greet them. She puts Lilac into her pack.

They clasp hands and disappear into the thick circle of trees behind them, into the deep swamp and farther and farther away.


	9. Universe Falling

So it looked like I was going crazy. Actually, legitimately crazy.

Not the fun kind of crazy when your great aunt takes off her wig and dips it in the stew at family dinner in order to make your uncle shut up about his problem with bell-bottom jeans. Not evil crazy like your math teacher making everyone re-do their multiplication tables eighty times in a row after one kid swore in class.

It was crazy crazy.

My name is Francine Wesley.

And this is how I started talking to the night sky.

————————————–

When I was twelve years old I had a transfer student ask me if I was a pirate. I’m not sure if she meant it in a bad way or not, she hadn’t learned the pecking order yet- which was me and then everyone else up ahead. She asked me if the bandage over my left eye meant I was going to get a parrot and sail the seven seas.

I wish.

It was the year of the second surgery on my left eye, trying to correct it before the smudges at the edge of my vision started to devour everything else. My glasses were -25 and took up 55% of my small face at that age.

I was 12 and playing pirates and princesses with people who didn’t know why I couldn’t catch the ball when they threw it at me. 

My father bought me my first official telescope that year, the year my grandpa passed away and left me all of his star charts and a broken down radio. I fixed the radio, I built the ladder up the tallest tree in my yard.

I traced the charts he left with my fingers, taking out a magnifying glass and looking and looking.

————–

They say math is the handwriting of God, that it breaks the world down into patterns and sense and definable movements.

I wasn’t sure about that, it felt more like God’s bad treasure map, one he put a lot of effort into making particularly unreadable sometimes. My mom was a math teacher, so it both helped and didn’t help at all. I hated most my other math teachers, they taught it wrong, I wasn’t fond of imaginary numbers, I never liked pi more than the average person, infinities were a headache. That didn’t stop me from beating all the boys at pop quizzes by the time I was in algebra one.

It was easier for me I think, smoother, faster, they said I was the quickest girl this side of the Cherry Creek. I didn’t know how to respond.

I didn’t like math, but I did like being told I was good at something, I did like what I could do with it, numbers and movements and the whole universe laid out. It got easier every time I did it.

That was the year that Cindy Claire took me to her birthday party, lifting me from the depths of social rejection, she said I was too pretty for the boys to be that mean. She wove flowers into my hair and asked if I liked anyone. I told her I didn’t know and we watched a movie with the captions on right in front of the screen.

That was the nicest thing anyone had done for me and Ratatouille is a beautiful movie when you’re barely looking.

She had a button nose and a splattering of freckles that curled and crawled around her body like paint flecks. I wanted to lick it up and watch her eyes light up, green as green fields and as wild as the western sky.

I entered a math tournament, she came and got asked out by every boy there, she laughed and said she already came with someone. I might have burst from joy if everything else inside me didn’t ache.

She grabbed my hand and said we were best friends and by that time next year she was dating the man she was going to marry and I was staring at the constellations in the sky like they were freckles. It’s easy to be in love with the sky and it’s easy to feel like breaking.

My dad was teaching me how to read his books under bright lights and a giant magnifying glass, my family always said I was like him- for better and worse.

———————-

I was seventeen when I had my license taken away, I only had it for one year but my mom told me she wouldn’t risk it. Not with a -30 prescriptions.

I was my father’s daughter and she wouldn’t see me driving myself off the side of the road when a blizzard rolled in. I lived in Northern Massachusetts, it snowed a lot that year.

I went to prom with Billy Eccleston, he didn’t know my middle name and I didn’t know his, but we sat in the back of his van and made out until my mouth went numb. I told myself this was probably how it was supposed to feel.

He tried to push my dress down and I wrinkled my nose and told him I was waiting for the right moment (and this wasn’t it), he rolled his eyes and reached for my glasses next, I bat his hand away. Now I was waiting for marriage.

He snorts and asked if I was still ‘actually getting out of this town soon?’ I nodded because this is why I accepted his prom invitation in the first place. We both wanted out- we could almost relate.

We both sigh at nothing and he kisses me again as I look over his left shoulder and watch the lights dance behind the cityscape.

I applied to 8 colleges and go into 6, my mom cried and my dad patted my head and I asked if I needed anything else- anything at all. He told me to get a dorm on the first floor and that he’d be there every weekend.

I cry, just a little bit.

———————————-

Everyone thinks it’s black, black like a setting sun or black like an airtight empty room. That it’s the night, the moment when you close your eyes and every color in the world is snuffed out.

A dark curtain, the thickest shadow over the world. But it’s not. It’s white.

Bright terrible light that floods and fleets into my vision, wavering colors and streaks of pure white, distracting as it is nonsense. I grit my teeth, it’s my sophomore year of college and I am squinting at the board and screeching in my head.

I was in the front row of the lecture and the professor was writing formulas on the board like his hand was on fire. I had a growing headache in my frontal lobe, I tell myself as I narrow my eyes at the board that I just needed to go to sleep, that it would be better in the morning.

My lip trembles and I take out my phone to get a close up of the board with my camera, trying to write and zoom at the same time.

“Any questions?” The professor asks as he turns around sternly, “this last one will be on the test.”

I flinch, was it too much to ask the world to iron itself out into a flat surface instead of a series of smudges and blurs? I see the professor turn in my direction and my stomach drops as I try to fix my expression.

Professor Chadwick was the ‘hardest bitch’ in the department as they called him and I couldn’t keep asking to come closer to the board in the middle of class. Soon I would just be licking the ink off of it to figure out what he had just written.

‘WRITE BIGGER’ is always on the tip of my tongue, but I just take another picture and wait.

“Got that?” He lets out a slew of theory before pointing at the clock as class comes to a close.

I’m almost up and out of my chair faster than a snap, I hurry to the board and finish taking pictures.

“Miss Wesley,” I jump at his voice. I barely turn my head as the five foot eleven man comes up to me, portly and round with a heavy dent in his forehead. He pats me on the back, “I saw your last test.”

I gulp and my lips pinch together, “uh, is this about Mrs. Dubois contacting you? Because I promise it won’t be distracting, I’ll just keep it on my desk.”

“I don’t care if you need five enhancers miss Wesley, that was some damn fine math.”

I raise my eyebrows, “thank you. I… studied?”

He chuckles, “you’re quick.” He pats my shoulder again, “and Mrs. Gregor says she likes the way you think. How would you like to intern for the department this summer?”

I blink only a couple times, “really?”

He nods with a sniff, “I see bright things in your future.”

My mouth was a little open and resist making the joke that I would be seeing a lot of bright things in my future too. I just nod instead, “thank you! Yes, I’d love to.”

That is the year I start working for Professor Chadwick and the university, it’s also the year that the government declares me legally blind.

—————————–

I had seven coworkers, two interns, and one sandwich place next to the observatory.

I was turning 28 in March and I hadn’t had a boyfriend since the last disaster of 2021. I was with sitting my back to the computers and a sandwich in my hand dripping mustard onto my lap.

The radio was on, playing ‘Winds of Fire’ as loud as it possibly could as I hear Sai Bhatia tapping her foot like she wanted to start a miniature cockroach band on the floor with it.

I moan loudly into my sandwich to let her know that it was both alright to take a break and hopefully expected. I had a feeling she resented me, but I also had a feeling that my next door neighbor was trying to summon ghosts in my driveway, so I wasn’t always a great judge of circumstance.

I was 27 and that still felt like it meant something.

“Woah,” both me and Sai pause as we hear a voice gasp from the other room. “Woah!” I sit up straight, “Dr. Wesley,” he says shrilly, “oh man, Dr. Bhatia!”

My skin was prickly as I stand up straight, “Rory, my boy, use your words.”

I hear some stumbling and chair screeching from the other room, “come look at this!”

I navigate my way into the next lab room, Rory, our grad student intern was standing next to the ROSTA computer and gesturing. I squint my eyes down and look both ways.

“Can you read it to me?”

“Yes, but you’re going to have to take a seat for this.”

I shake my head, “let’s get to the reading first, then we can see if any chairs need to be involved.”

“Let me see,” Dr. Bhatia clicks her heels over in a few strides, “did you locate the nearest asteroid cluster wavelengths?”

“No, but this electromagnetic field is enormous, and… weird? Really read. Listen to this,” he starts reading off the numbers and I perk up.

I only start leaning forward and my thoughts start racing, “This is saying it’s only a couple light years away, how the hell is that so close?” I turn to him, “Have we ever seen this before?”

He makes a couple non-committed gestures and points, “I’ve recorded it, we have to send this immediately.”

I nod quickly, “I’m going to scan some journals to see if this has ever been recorded before, how fast is it moving?”

“Dunno,” he shrugs, “but the camera picked up on some objects in it too.”

“Comets?” Dr. Bhatia was glancing over the numbers too.

“Dunno.”

I ruffle Rory’s bright red head, “hang in there kid.”

“Promise I’ll keep looking!”

I laugh and crack my knuckles, “let’s get to work.”

That was the first night, and it was a very long one at that.

—————–

Rory left around 3am, he said he needed to get back to his girlfriend, but even I could tell there were bags weighing his eyes down and a slump to his shoulders. And that was saying something.

Dr. Bhatia left just before dawn, not because she wanted to but because she hated the only donut place that delivered to our facility and someone had to eat a proper meal she said.

I was waiting expectantly for my Krispy Kremes when it hit six in the morning on a chilly fall day. I heard it first.

A radio buzz, bursting and calling as if this was a 1950s spy movie and the Russians were trying to jam our equipment, my eyebrows spike. I go to turn on the audio function to read the recent findings and digital images.

I pause when I start hearing the same repeating numbers: 01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100

I furrow my brow, “what the hell?”

I bend down and try to squint at one of the digital pictures from our probe, I make a face. It was a very pink, a very large and pink blur.

Our mother university had called and told us to keep on an eye on the phenomena, it might be just a series of comets with some odd readings, but I was staring at something entirely different now. I couldn’t quite make sense of it, or make it out. But it was pink and bright.

01101000 01100101 01101100 01101100

I shouldn’t be getting numbers in this way.

“Okay computer,” I say stiffly, “but why?”

I sit down to start looking for the main patterns in the data as the numbers keep repeating and repeating.

—————————

I was going crazy, legitimately crazy.

There was only one pattern in the repeating readings of the magnetic field that made any sense, it was binary, of course it was binary. And it didn’t make any sense, why would our computer translate coordinates into binary?

Why would it read it out over and over? Our stuff was either breaking OR, unfortunately, the sky was somehow writing ‘hello’ to me.

Which was either first alien contact or a very sad local news article: bravely differently-abled scientist makes her way to the nut house.

Sky’s. Didn’t. Say. Hello.

Especially comets, what even lived in comets? There was a lot about the universe we didn’t know and the sudden small chance this was it sent a giddiness through my veins like no other.

It was new. It was never seen before. I don’t go home that night.

————–

I wake up on my desk the next morning in a puddle of my own drool and in front of a whole slew of numbers and a binary-language program open on my computer. Alongside a whole box of Krispy Kremes as the site of a tragic graveyard massacre of crumbs.

“What are these?” I hear a new voice enter and I wipe at the crust in my eyes.

“We’re being visited by aliens, haven’t you heard?” I yawn, “they’re very pink.”

“No, I mean, really, what am I looking at?” Dr. Chadwick had returned to the facility.

I crack my neck and stand up, “hell if I know.”

“Haha.”

“Just a little joke for your morning doctor.”

He sniffs loudly, “please come in here.”

I find my glasses and lurch my way to the room that I had just spent the last eleven hours in. I clear my throat, “Did you see the readings? It’s like the computer is possessed or something.”

“And by that you mean possessed by an angry ghost that erases our equipment?”

My eyebrows shoot up, “what?”

“Tell me what you see? And no, that isn’t a joke invitation.”

I lower my face into the paper and see nothing but an empty blackness. It was empty, a nothing, a black picture.

My head falls down, “what.. What?”

I was going crazy.

——————————-

I try not to be at the office the next day. Or the next.

I take some time off to scroll through my tinder notifications and visit the nearest pool to just sort of stick my feet in and sit in the sauna room until I melt. It was funny I left my small town in Massachusetts just enter another smaller town in Maine.

Who even went to Maine?

Scientists and bad decisions.

All of the data from the night before had been scrambled, we had still sent off the original points of magnetic radiation, but we were told it was just a phenomenon. An off reading.

I still had a couple handwritten notes, sloppy, large, and with one word in the middle: HELLO.

Fuck, hello. I tried that one on a few of my tinder matches and it didn’t quite feel the same after hearing it from the sky. Aliens existed and so did English binary in space apparently.

Or ghosts that knew computer binary and possessed equipment. Stars that could speak. The end of the world? And I was that one scientist who had to warn everyone about the danger and yet no one would believe me.

The film tagline: The Blind Girl Saw it All! But No one Could believe their eyes. The stars were speaking now, and they were pissed. Disaster movie 2028.

I lie on my belly in the sun and listen to an audio book about magic and intrigue. It was my second time trying to finish the Wheel of Time series and I was halfway asleep in the grass.

Something buzzes inside me: I should send something back, I blink a couple times. I should definitely try and send something.

_Said every normal person right before they are eaten by space monsters._

I roll over and crawl over to my porch, it was time to break out my old CB radio that my grandfather left me. I take my time arranging the frequency and sitting on my roof that night, thinking, writing.

I tap out one clear, dotted message: hello.

I knew it wouldn’t carry very far, but somehow that wasn’t the point for me. I wait.

————————

It was the next day when I hear Dr. Bhatia in the next room. “I’m leaving.” She says loudly, “I’m not doing this again.”

I lift my eyebrows and turn around toward the computer room. “More weird numbers?”

Her heels click as she walks in, “it’s getting closer. I emailed the data points away quickly this time, but the second time I looked they all came up blank.”

I wrinkle my nose, “we’re being haunted.”

She sniffs, “And I’m not going to be the first brown person eaten in the movie.”

I laugh, “it’s okay. I’ll be the blind girl that tragically stumbles into the queens nest first and gets fed to her young.”

Dr. Bhatia snickers to herself, “yeah. And then Rory saves the day, it’s a blockbuster.”

We laugh together and I’m hoping the passive aggressive PhD comparisons fades. Even if I did get magna cum laude a year ahead of her- just for the record.

She pats me on the back, “go home too.”

“No way,” I stand up and crack my back, “finding new and unusual things is why I’m in the field. I’m like Velma from scooby doo, but sexier.”

“Sure,” she leans over my chair and points at my glasses, “an appropriate comparison.”

I grin, “extra hours never hurt.” I sing and I can make out her shaking head.

“I’m calling maintenance tomorrow to check for pigeons in the observatory dish again.”

I laugh, “I love talking to pigeons you know.”

She pats me on the back and the only thing left to do was hurry over to the next room, I turn on the audio readings and take out a pen. I jot down the numbers faster than the computer can speak.

It reverted once again from its usual numeral coordinates back into ones and zeroes. It was happening again.

But it was different.

Night number two: ‘can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me?’

I use the lab radio this time: yes, yes, yes. Yes.

The hard drive is all blank in the morning. Everything from the emails to outdoor cameras in the parking lot were left blank.

Maintenance was sent in twice, Rory jokes that the FBI was coming next with Scully and Mulder.

I tell him he’s Mulder already and that apparently makes his week and he makes coffee for me first for the rest of the night. But my skin is crawling, I wait for them to leave again.

Our equipment was breaking or I was talking to something, I consider bringing in more experts, new pairs of eyes to watch me contact it. But I have feeling it wouldn’t speak then, and I have a deeper fear that I didn’t want anyone else to see it anyway.

I wait until 3am, tapping, looking, waiting, the computer starts reading binary again, I translate quickly through my other computer.

‘I’ve seen you before, I’ve seen you before, I’ve seen you before.’

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. So this is the part of the movie where the alien comes down and uses me as it’s first meat puppet.

But it was also the part of the movie where every part of my being lights up.

‘Where? Why are you deleting our files? What are you doing? Who are you?’ I had prepared all of these binary questions the day before.

I only get back one word: ‘again. Again. Again.’

I hold my breath and write down as much as I can with pen and paper. The equipment is blank as a newborn baby the next day but I have the one word: again.

——————————-

November 10th 2028: the messages start. And it’s not possible, it should not be quick or easy or fast.

I knew something was wrong. But the binary in the sky comes back just as I type out a new message on the lab radio.

‘It’s been so long.’

‘How long?’ I ask, ‘Where are you?’

‘Too long.’

‘What do you see?’

‘You. It’s been so long.’

‘That’s kind of freaking me out.’ I finally tell whatever it is the truth.

‘Haha.’ I get back some sort of strange binary laugh. ‘I don’t mean to. You’re so small this time.’

‘Now you are really freaking me out. Why are you deleting the data?’

‘Goodnight my love.’

I don’t sleep that night or the next day or wonder why ‘my love’ was written in my notes as if my fingers were going through an earthquake. Of course, I could finally add: ‘at least the sky loves me’ on my next dating profile.

——————

November 11th 2028:

I ask first this time.

‘Do you have a name?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you tell me?’

‘You may call me Heaven’

I sit up in my chair and my mouth hangs up, “Oh fuck,” I swear up and down and suddenly stop being an atheist for a second.

‘Heaven?’

‘Haha.’ I get back the same metallic laugh.

‘Heaven?’ I send again.

‘No.’

‘You made a joke.’

‘You are very funny when you are surprised.’

‘Can you see me?’ I write first.

‘Can you see me?’ Is the return.

I send a very short message, ‘let’s just say ‘no.’

‘You may call me ‘Texca’ until we meet again.” I translate the name over and over again until it looks like I got it right.

‘Texca?’ I send out quickly, some part of me knows it shouldn’t be this quick. It was light years away.

‘Yes. What is yours?’

‘What do you mean by ‘until we meet again?’ It was a long message to get out, it was almost five in the morning now.

‘That is a very long name.’

‘Haha. My name is Francine.’ I tell her quickly and the response is immediate.

‘Francine, Francine, Francine.’

‘Please,’ I type, hoping that weird ghost/deities/aliens knew begging. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Francine.’ Is written back, ‘goodnight my love.’

I lie on the floor and trace lines in the ceiling. I was surely losing it, but they would have to come shut me down before I stop.

——————-

November 12th 2028.

‘Francine.’ She (I now call it she) messages first.

‘Good morning!’

‘It really is.’

‘Is it morning where you are?’ I try to decipher where she is.

‘It’s always morning when I see you.’

‘Oh.’ My hands hover over the ‘dot dot’ button. ‘Are you making more jokes?’

‘No.’ Texca writes.

‘Can you really see me?’ I write again.

‘Yes,’ it says, ‘yes, yes, yes.’

‘How?’

‘You are very much a scientist.’

‘You know what a scientist is?’

‘I know what you are.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Up above.’

‘Okay?’

‘You’re confused.’

‘Yes!’

‘Haha,’ it said again and I sigh heavily, ‘give it time my love.’

‘I am frowning. Do you know what a frown is?’

It took a good ten minutes for me to translate the next couple messages, I groan when I find the right combination.

‘:)’

‘An alien with a sense of humor,’ I write back and stretch out as I savor my time in the ethers of nonsense. Of the impossible.

‘A human with one too.’

‘How are you doing this?’

‘Keep looking.’

‘Where?’ I sit up completely, ‘where?’

‘Goodnight my love.’

I put my head in my hands, hunch over and then groan so loudly I think it echoes off the lab walls.

I’m looking for something in a forest of weeds it feels like, no up, no down, just roots and questions.

———————

“So,” Sai Bhakti was sitting with her back up straight a pastry in her hand, “I hear you’ve been keeping long nights.”

I put my elbows on the table and lean forward, “can’t we talk about Game of the Thrones or something? We’re out of work for once.”

She cracks a smile, “I just hear you’re talking to ghosts.”

I sniff, “The ghost of the second monitor? I guess so.”

She pushes a pastry over to me, “God. We really did need to be kicked out of that office. Thank God for maintenance days.”

I bat a pastry back and forth in my hands, “do you think there’s a chance… I dunno, it’s not broken?”

She makes a face at me, “how? It’s erasing data points.”

“Well,” I frown, “there’s a lot in this universe we don’t understand.”

She leans forward, “like ghosts.”

“And aliens.”

“And bigfoot.”

I snort, “bigfoot is definitely involved.”

“You know,” she tucks a piece of long dark hair behind her ear, “you’re right. We don’t have to talk about work.”

We both stare at each other for a second and she leans back, I clear my throat, “how’s your husband?”

She shrugs, “the usual burden.” I raise my eyebrows and open my mouth, she puts her hand up, “lovable burden.”

I listen to her describe the problems of laundry day and having to share a bathroom with a man who cuts his toenails on the counter. But he made her dinner every night even on the nights she didn’t come home, so she assures me it’s working.

I nod, she starts eyeing me, “and you?” She narrows her eyes, “you’ve been more… chipper.”

“I’m always chipper,” I defend, “like a cheap socialite at an invite-only event.”

She smiles, “how’s the love life doctor?”

I stick my tongue out, “I can be chipper without another person involved.” It surely wasn’t a person anyway.

She studies me, “eat your pastry then.”

I take a bite and sigh into the sky, “okay. I mean. Something is… going on.”

“Something?”

“Something. But not like, dating something. Just something.”

“Ooh,” her features get sharp, “one that rhymes with one night hand?”

I couch on my own spit, “oh my God.”

“I’m not that young Fran.”

I crack a smile, “I mean. There have been a couple long nights,” I say mysteriously, “but nothing happens. And I think… I mean, I don’t know much about her.” Like if she had a body or ate or walked or breathed air.

I take a deep breath, “But she seems to like me? A lot?”

Sai hums loudly and sits up, “and how do you feel?”

I pause for the moment and stare up at nothing, “good?” I say slowly, “confused.”

“Ah, does she like you more than you like her?” She taps her chin again.

I tilt my head to the side, “I don’t know her.”

She shrugs, “then give it a chance.”

I smile down at my hands, “I’m not sure you’d say that if you knew her.”

Sai laughs softly, “is she odd?”

“The oddest.”

“Good,” Sai slaps her hands on the table, “you’ll match.”

I blow a stray piece of hair away from my face, “local pirate falls in love with the sky.”

She gives me a strange look, “come again?”

“Nothing.”

I wait for maintenance to check our equipment and I hope nothing changes.

————

November 15th 2028

‘How are you Texca?’ It’s the first night I have alone again.

The response is immediate, ‘where have you been?’

‘I thought you could see me?’

‘I was so worried.’

‘I’m here now. They were checking our observatory. You’ve caused quite a stir.’

‘I’m close.’

I sit up completely straight in my seat, ‘oh?’

‘I’m so close my love.’

‘Where? Where are you?’

‘Above,’ it says again and again, ‘I have something to tell you.’

‘Please,’ I say quickly, ‘yes, I am listening.’

‘I know you don’t remember.’

‘Remember what?’

‘But I am Texca,’ there is a long pause between those words, a buzz that comes across the speaker as the computer seems to almost fritz. ‘I have always loved you.’

My mouth is hanging open and I feel like the world will become completely white and empty after that second. ‘Why?’

‘Always,’ ‘always, ‘always.’

A screech comes over the speakers, the two programs working together to translate the binary into words starts showing numbers, symbols, nonsense, gibberish.

‘Always, always.’ It forms a simple elegant formation. And one last word, in English, no filter. ‘SOON.’

I hold my breath and wonder if this is when I walk into the alien queen’s lair and get eaten. I knew then that I would go willingly.

“Soon,” I whisper the word to myself like an electric thrill, something was happening, something I could never explain.

I fall asleep sitting against the cool wall of the observatory and try to make sense of things I see in the telescope, blurry shapes. Something pink.

———————

I wake up the next morning and the computer was smoking, Rory was dancing from foot to foot and trying to explain it to Dr. Chadwick.

“I didn’t do it!” He says shrilly, “I promise, I promise professor, please don’t fail me.”

Bob just sighs, “someone get maintenance in here again. And figure out what these damn numbers mean.”

“Wait,” I limp back up and feel the bruises on my body from spending the night against the wall.

Bob turns around, “and if it isn’t our favorite Cinderella. You do own a bed, don’t you? God knows I pay you enough.”

I shake my head, “wait.”

“Dr. Wesley didn’t do it either!” Rory defends quickly, “in fact, I did do it.”

“That’s very kind kid,” I make my way over and fumble for the audio button, “let me hear the numbers.”

“64.2008, 149.4937.”

I wipe at my face and stand up straight, I knew it in my gut. “Oh.” I blink, “someone get a map.”

“You think the numbers are for here?” The doctor asks and I nod.

“How do you know?”

I turn around, “I have to go.”

“Doctor?” Bob Chadwick turns to me, “are you alright, wait, Fran.”

I wave listlessly, “I’m taking a few days off.”

I don’t stop as they call after me, I knew it then. There was no going back.

I leave them a long note and all my coupons for the local restaurants.

————————–

The plane ride was $200 for one way since I was buying at last minute, I choose first class because why the hell not. I was treating myself as I chased strangers that were either playing the longest game prank ever. Or something else.

I was going to Nome Alaska on a Tuesday night.

The trip over is a dreamless hush of sleep that leaves me feeling empty and anxious in every crevice of my body. I was chasing something that erased data points and communicated in binary and had been watching me.

Which might say more about my mental state of being rather than things in the actual realms of possibility. But I had to go, I had to find out.

I get off at Anchorage in a wobbly daydream of consciousness and board a second tiny plane.

I sit between an old man with his cat under the seat and a teenager who talked on the phone with his mom before we took off. He was visiting his dad and she was worried about the spider bite he got last time he was there.

I almost start crying after we take off, I don’t know why.

We arrive at seven in the morning, the old man shakes me gently awake as we land and there are tear stains dripping down my cheeks again, I wipe my face and don’t say anything as I enter Nome Alaska.

It was another world if I had ever seen one, small colorful houses and empty streets. It was the middle of the winter so no one was out of their houses and very few visitors made it this far out.

I was lucky it was warmer than usual, but it still numbed my cheeks and shook my teeth to their roots as I stepped outside. I hurry to get inside the airport and pick up my simple bag- a large radio inside.

I took a long look out the airport window before tugging a hat further down on my ears and finding the nearest tourism desk.

A smiling yet surprised looking woman greets me, “Welcome to Nome Alaska! What can I do for you?”

I lift my chin up, “just a little help.”

“Will you be needing lodging miss?”

I just nod before taking a deep breath, “Yeah. Also, I have a question.”

She leans over the desk, “go right ahead.”

“Where is the best place to the see the sky around here?”

———————————–

I booked a room at a motel named ‘Linda’s’ met Linda and took a very long walk until my toes went number, which wasn’t very hard at all. I was living in Maine so I wasn’t  _not_  used to the cold.

But Nome Alaska was a different type of cold altogether. It wanted to eat you alive and leave the bones to freeze.

I kept walking.

The tour guide gave me some helpful tips: there’s a lot of great places with natural beauty around Nome! The snow and trees and little squat rural houses.

And snow.

I didn’t mind the snow and there were more stars here in this tiny chunk of the world than in all of Massachusetts combined. Nome had a glittering sky that went on in all directions, it was mostly all a big blur to me, but a beautiful one nonetheless.

I use my camera and magnify and magnify, following the path as far as it will go.

I follow it until I find a low hill with a view of the city just behind me, I sit down. I wait.

———————

November 20th.

Nothing on the radio, I call Dr. Bhatia, she says the equipment has returned to normal, though they had to throw out monitor two.

A woman at the local dinner refills my coffee five times and someone buys me a piece of cherry pie.

I pet someone’s Husky malamute in the street and wait.

———————

November 21st.

The sky is so big sometimes I’m afraid it’ll swallow me whole when I look up into it. I start shaking at night, the tear stains pepper down my cheek each morning I wake up.

There is silence at the other end of my radio and I wait. Perhaps there was a lead leak into my local water back in Maine. I dream of mad kings and beautiful pink princesses that never wake up from their enchanted slumber.

————————–

November 22nd.

Someone takes me out snowshoeing and the first winter storm rolls in that night, I don’t see any sky for days.

Linda’s says she’s going to stoke a fire in the common room if I want some strong whiskey and a game of poker. I lose thirty-two bucks that night and any sense of purpose.

“What are you doing here miss?” The man at the poker table asks twice.

I just shrug twice, “I dunno.”

They hum at that and then I lose thirty-three bucks that night.

——————–

November 25th.

The storm clears up and I don’t know how to tell the local residents that I am both Jewish and not here for Christmas. They are having a small parade in the city center nonetheless and every other person I meet tells me to come. I watch a tiny girl bundled up to her neck sing a Christmas carol as high pitched as a silver bell.

I clap, and I wait.

The sky is so large I’m afraid if I don’t hold onto something then it will suck me up into the vast cold above, sometimes I try to let go though and let it happen.

I’m afraid I really have lost my mind.

———————

December 2nd.

“They’ll be an aurora tonight,” Linda tells me that morning and I perk up, just a little bit.

“Oh,” I blink a little bit, “really?”

“I feel it. Yeah, will you still be around for that young lady?”

I hum, “I’ll try. I’ve booked a flight home on Thursday.”

She gives an old wizened smile, “shame. My son really liked your singing voice.”

I wipe my face and adjust my thick glasses, “that’s why I don’t drink whiskey anymore.”

“It’s always nice to have more people out this way!” She wipes the counter down and watches me, “for whatever reason they arrive for.”

I shrug listlessly and give an almost-smile, “early mid-life crisis.”

She chuckles, “hope it was a good one!”

I laugh, “it was.”

I wander around the city all day and hug the first loose dog I see, “do you know where you’re going sir?” I ask the dog as I pet his ears and he laps up my face.

Neither of us has much of an answer.

—————–

December 3rd.

I hear it before I see it. A buzz, a whistle, something like a whisper and a clanking sound all at once. “Told you, stranger!”

A crowd is pointing and picking up cameras, it’s night and I had missed my flight home, I start walking in the opposite direction of the crowd.

The buzzing and chiming increases like a soft caress eating away at me. I look up.

“Texca?” I call out into nothing as I hear it, the something. “Texca.”

There is something pink on the horizon, I start running, my eyes are prickling. I see the same hill I had found the first night I had arrived here.

I stumble and hobble through the snow, climbing and clawing my way to the top as I keep the colors of the night just in front of me. I can see their smears of greens and blues kissing the earth.

I squint and call, my voice rising in the wind. “Are you here!?” I raise my arms up, “were you real…?”

Maybe I already knew the answer. The greens shift to blue and yellow before my eyes, and pink, pink like flowers, pink like cats noses, pink like the universe.

I gasp and see something morph and shape above me, large enough so even I could make it out, large enough to steal my breath away. The night sky was alive with one word: my love.

The tears start freezing on my cheeks as they won’t stop flowing, “it’s been so long.”

I reach my shaking, hungry fingers up and grasp at the light. I see it, a figure, a being, something I couldn’t describe. Maybe we all were made of souls and stardust and perhaps soulmates exist in feral untamed universes.

Even if they must cross the galaxy to meet again.

My fingertips grace over something warm and I am overcome with something morphing out of the nothing. “My love,” a whisper, like a wish and a prayer and the rev of a car engine. “You came.”

I am enveloped in warmth and something drips down my body like melting candle wax, I close my arms and wrap my arms around the light.

“Hello, my love.”

And the sky devours me whole.


	10. The She-Wolf of Sanders

She kissed her two brother’s on the cheek before she left, something she hadn’t done in years. Drake pulled away from the touch, Callum just looked off into the distance like some distant lighthouse was calling him to shore. They mumbled some goodbyes, but none of them are memorable.

It was quiet, quiet like an old house is quiet and quiet like the soft drizzle of rain on a stone street, Anna didn’t like it, but there wasn’t much to like.

Their father stood in the corner, he was a tall man with broad shoulders built for working, years of sun had left him weathered and solid. He was always a solid force, stiff black hair and a face inlined with indents like water valleys in a countryside.

The candles for market were tied in a tight bundle next to him.

He only moved to hand Anna her pack and then step out of the way, she dipped her head down as she left. She’s not sure if it’s some sort of bow or just making herself small one last time before she was gone for good.

The door closed behind her and she kept her head held high, she started out at a brisk pace.

It was chilled outside, the sun hadn’t come up yet and a mute black sky lay up above with no hint of orange on the horizon- just like the village leaders instructed. The village of Tommin was hushed, empty cobblestone streets and blank windows with dead lights lay at every corner.

Almost all the houses here were built in the old style in this part: white wooden paneling and dark maroon roofs, squat and low to the ground. Each entranceway had a bit of sage hanging over the doorway today, it was Brides Day afterall.

Anna moved quickly down the main street, her back straight and lips pinched, she reminded herself to take deep breaths in through her nose to calm her nerves. She didn’t need her thundering heartbeat distracting her right now.

Nothing rustled as the streets became muddy and unwieldy, the edge of town grew nearer and the light seemed to be sucked from the air as she approached. She could see Mount Hessia from there- a craggy jagged shape that pierced the night sky. Churning grey clouds matted around it’s lowest peak and promised howling winds and bitter cold.

She winced at the thought.

Anna paused when she came to the edge of the village, nothing but dirt roads and thick fir trees eye her from up ahead. She stared unseeingly in front of her, hands loose and empty by her sides, _move, move, move,_ she started to prompt herself, will herself forward. _Move!_

“Anna!”  
  
Anna jumped violently as a voice hissed at her, she turned around in frantic circles as blood pounded her ears for a moment.

“Calm down, it’s just me,” A young boy with jet black hair and a thin frame stepped out from behind the nearest house. He had a long nose and crooked teeth, but the eyes of someone many people described as ‘familiar’ and ‘honest.’

“Callum,” Anna put a hand over her heart, she sighed in relief. Then whipped around on him, “You’re not supposed to be here.”

Callum frowned and took a couple hurried steps toward her, “Does it matter? It’s not like playing by their rules has helped anyone.”  
  
Anna shook her head, “this isn’t the time or place.”

“I won’t be long.”

She looked at the treeline, “We have until dawn.”  
  
“Ann,” he said in a small voice, too small for a boy hitting 15 in a few months. “It shouldn’t have to be this way.” He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat.

Anna leaned down and stroked his cheek, “It’ll okay.” She kissed his forehead again, “But I have to go.”  
  
“I hate them,” Callum gnashed his teeth, “I hate every single one of them.”  
  
“Callum...” she said in a soft tone, as if almost pleading with him, he jutted his chin out and looked up at her again.

“I came to bring you this, someone ought to.” He passed her a long bundle that was about as wide as her hand and a slightly shorter than her forearm. “Here.”

Anna lifted her eyebrows, “What is it?” She carefully undid the rags tied around the object and gasped when the tatters fell away, a bright silver knife with a curved back caught the light. It had a handle wrapped in a black ribbon and a gleaming nasty-looking point.

She turned to Callum quickly, “How did you…?”  
  
“That’s not important,” He put a hand on her shoulder, “It’s only important that you use it.” He held her gaze. “You have to come back, Anna.”  
  
Anna reached over and pulled him into a tight embrace, “You know I can’t do that.”  
  
They both stay there for a long second, the moonless night burying them on all sides and time closing in like a casket being covered in dirt. Anna let her little brother go and turned toward the mountains, “Take care of Drake for me.”  
  
Callum doesn’t respond, Anna imagined him waving at her as she trotted stiffly ahead, but she doesn’t look back.

She began the climb.

\---------------------

It was cold, cold like she’d never experienced before.

Anna remembered chilled winter days with her mother by the fire, her mom sending her out into the backyard for more firewood. She remembered losing her gloves and refusing to admit it, dragging the wood home with bare shaking fingers.

The icy wind had slapped at her pale pink hands and made them almost unusable for an hour.

She remembered her boots getting soaked from the muddy slush of melting snow and how she still wanted to go play. Her feet became uncomfortable dead weights within the hour and she remembered running home with her cheeks streaming.

She remembered cold.

But it wasn’t this cold, bone-chilling, angry, furious cold that bit under her clothes and made pinpricks of tingling light on her nerves. It snuck beneath her skin and consumed her every thoughts, her teeth rattled like little motors in her head.

She didn’t remember how long it took, they used to say Hessia was only a two hour journey, but that was before the storm started. Now it felt like every second dripped by like an entire lifetime.

Walking into it was vivid: the sun slowly rising on her back and birds beginning to chirp in the treetops, the warm fall day behind her and thick clouds ahead. The wind picked up first, slashing across her exposed cheeks and nipping at her heels. And then she saw the first snow-drifts, plump piles of glittering white sitting absurdly in the sunlight, just outside of the dark overcast ahead.

She took out a small compass at that point, a little blue light inside spun for several seconds and then landed on the path straight in front of her. She put her head down and walked into the oncoming sleet, the little blue light guided her ahead to somewhere she didn’t want to be.

She grit her teeth against the howling winds and stinging snow, she forced her burnings legs to keep walking just as her boots finally soaked through. They were said to be the best in the village, but she wasn’t sure she could ever trust Tommin again anyway.

They had chosen her after all.

 _1, 2, 3,_ she counted in her head, _1, 2, 3._

And then the dizziness started to set in, the fire in her muscles started to dull to a sluggish ache and then grew into a broad numbness.

Anna began to curse, her teeth chattering and every bad word she knew building up in her. “God. Dammit.” Her vision started to blot.  
  
She looked at her little blue compass and forced herself to start running, _I can’t die before I even get there._ She thought angrily to herself, _I can’t, I can’t, I can’t._

She ran headlong up the final peak, a building as tall as two trees stacked ontop of each other materialized from the white fog of snow. It had thick black turrets and high walls, lights shining from within. It was a massive place build into the mountain itself.

Anna reached her hand up toward the castle walls, desperately, wildly, her eyes watered as she took another step and another, and then she’s falling, kneeling, crumpling into herself.

Her vision blotted out one piece at a time, like puzzle coming apart one piece at time, and the nothingness overwhelmed her.

\-----------------------------

The first thing Anna noticed was the burning pain, the second thing was the loud crackle of something next to her ear. She took a moment to roll over in bed, “Ow.”  
  
A sharp pain ran throughout her hands and legs, like many splinters going across her nerves. She wrinkled her nose and tried to sit upright, her heart stopped when she opened her eyes.

“Oh.” This was not her home. Her eyes fly in either direction, this was not her home at all.

It was a square boxy room with grey stone floors and walls, thick rugs carpeted the ground and she felt a heavy black pelt covering her stinging body. The room was slightly bare, with three ornate windows on the opposite wall and a few benches pushed to the side, a single wooden table sat in the center of it.

She turned to see an enormous fire roaring in a hearth next to her. She squirmed in place and looked down to see a thick pink nightdress on her persons instead of her traveling clothes. She swallowed thickly.

Anna shifted in place and only jumped slightly when another person came into view from one of the corners. She held her heart, “Ohmygod.”

The stranger was wearing a neat blue page vest and matching blue pants, he had on high boots and brass buttons down his front- the look of a high-class manservant. His long silver hair was tied back with pure white ribbon and his eyes were similarly pale and otherworldly.

His complexion was tinted a sluggish light grey and he had thin lips and a handsome, if not long, nose on a very serious face. She glanced up at the tall pointed ears on both sides of his head.

_An elf._

She scrambled away from him in order to keep her distance, her eyes darting around the room, “Am I,” she stuttered, “Am I ... in the castle?”  
  
_Did I make it?_

The figure nodded slowly, his eyes stayed completely focused on Anna, unblinking, she shifted in place and tried not to dwell on her tingling limbs and bruised body. “Um.” She tried to form the first questions.

The stranger crossed the room to bend over her, a voice traveled through the air, hissing and low, echoing off the walls like plinks of raindrops off cave walls. “How do you feel?” The words are slow and barely audible.

Anna went stiff. It wasn’t just an elf, she looked him up and down.

 _It’s a whispering Elf_.

“F-fine, thank you.” That was mostly a lie, but she was alive and breathing so that had to be something.

The elf nodded, “I,” he began in his slithering low voice, “Am Remfry.” He frowned slightly, “What may we call you?”  
  
“Anna,” Anna said quickly, “I was chosen by the village of Tommin to be sent to the High Castle  to be-”  
  
“We know why you are here.” The voice whispered back, Remfry straightened up.

Anna just nodded, “I, um, yeah.”  
  
“We will let you recover.”  
  
Anna looked to the fire, “When will I,” she surprised herself by speaking again, turning back to the elf. He tilted his head at her, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin up. She needed to get this over with, she needed it to begin.

“When will I meet the mistress?” Anna didn’t want to wait anxiously for her fate, wringing her hands for hours as the knowledge haunted her every twitch.

Remfry was still, he looked her over, he bent over again to whisper, “Do you wish to meet her soon?”  
  
“Yes,” Anna said quickly, “I am her bride, am I not?” She tried to make it sound coy and innocent, though they both probably knew what this was.

He hummed for a moment, which sounded like a slight breeze or tiny buzzing. “Very well.” Remfry turned and left the room, Anna’s shoulders dropped as the door closed.

 _What am I doing?_  
  
She lamented, but she knew it was the right move. It was always going to be time to meet the She-Wolf of Sanders.

\--------------------

 _I should have asked for different clothes first._ Anna bemoaned her own decision-making skills, the fire crackled next to her and the burn in her muscles started to fade. She put her shaking fingers by the fire anyway, she was sweating now but that was probably a good sign.

She found the water they left by her little cot and took several gulps of it until it’s finished.

She looked back to the three small windows, they had yellow glass and gold frames, they reminded her of church windows and yellow afternoons in the sun. However, she could hear the storm beating against them from outside. _I wonder if that’s constant._

She doesn’t dwell on it.

Anna was fumbling through her thoughts when she finally reached for her side, for her bag, for the little bundle tucked into her waistband. “Oh no.” Her pants were gone, so was the knife her brother gave her.

 _I was never going to use it anyway,_ she told herself and clenched her teeth.

Anna waited.

She hugged her legs to her chest and searched the fire for something, maybe a poker stick to reach for if she had to. She doesn’t know what to expect, she only had the village leadership to refer back to and the stories. Lot’s of stories.

Anna never thought she would be the bride of the beast, but someone had to do it and it’s not like she was the _most_ unlikely candidate, not after what happened with Talia.

Anna closed her eyes and bent her head back, imagining the wind biting at her skin again but this time it whipped through her and stripped her of all the heaviness in her bones. All the brooding thoughts building underneath, taking every last bit of her into the mountain tops.

_Crack_

Anna jerked to alertness as the door creaked and something like a metal key jangled in the lock.

_Oh._

She put her bare feet on the cow skin rug and managed to stand up, she couldn’t imagine meeting the She-Wolf sitting down like an open meal already. She counted back from ten.

The door swung open before she got to five and her thoughts tangle themselves into a web as an enormous figure strode through the entranceway.

“So,” A gravelly voice called to her, “I heard you called for an audience with me.”  
  
Anna tried not to scream.

She took several steps back from the hulking figure standing there.

“Yes, yes,” the creature ducked it’s head and walked into the light. “If you must.”

Anna’s fingers shook and she couldn’t help but cover her mouth.

A creature that stood at least 6 feet tall loomed above her, it had on a periwinkle blue dress that was laced up loosely in the bodice, human hands and two perfectly normal feet under the heavy lank skirts.

But those weren’t the parts Anna was focusing on.

The creatures neck was a thick grey mat of fur, muscled and wide. It had a long dark muzzle with yellowing teeth bared underneath.

Two pointed grey ears stood upright on her head and sharp yellow eyes followed Anna with a grave intensity. Her eyes were outlined in black and deep set in the creatures face.

The fur was wild and windswept, giving the look of something feral and unkempt.

It was the Wolf-headed Woman. She was larger and more disconcerting than Anna expected.

The She-wolf stared coolly down at her, “Remfry told me you wished to see me already, interesting.” She spoke with a deep growl undertone, “most the maidens avoid me until the first dinner.” Her rumbling voice tumbled through Anna’s core.

Out of habit, and panic, Anna folded into a deep curtsy. “I’m Anna.”

“I’ve heard,” the wolf said offhandedly, “and you may call me Apodemia, or Mistress Demia if you must.”

“O-of course,” she continued her curtsy.

“How did you find the walk?” The wolf, Mistress Demia, asked sedately.

“Uh,” Anna stammered for a moment, searching herself for a proper answer. “It’s what I… expected I suppose.”

The wolf’s face split into something like a smile, “It’s hell, I know, you can say it.”  
  
Anna’s mouth made a hard line, “Yes. It’s hell.”  
  
The creature let out a deep rumbling laugh, “Honest, good.”  
  
Anna set her jaw, “Please… Mistress Demia, should I, when will I?” She planned this much better in her head, the wolf just shook her head.

“Dinner will be at 7,” Demia finally said.

“Oh,” Anna blinked a couple times, “Yes.”

“And maybe,” the wolf said with a slight glint in her eye, she reached for something in the pocket of her gown, “we’ll have something interesting to talk about, won’t we?”

She retrieved the silver curved blade and held it up, catching the orange flames of the fire in its fine surface.

Anna took a step forward, “I can explain.”

“No need,” the wolf turned away, “I’ll see you at 7.”

Anna stood perfectly still as Demia swept away with a flourish and carelessly swung the door closed behind her.

It slammed, not loudly, and Anna fell to her knees, staring at her empty hands and gaping. Her legs were reduced to jelly and shoulders shaking.

She knew there lived a wolf-headed person in the heart of the storm, but she hadn’t expected the muted fear in her at the sight of the rows of sharp teeth and alien eyes.

This isn’t how she imagined her wedding night.

—————

Anna was counting to three. She was counting her footsteps on the long drafty halls and clutching her skirts high.

They had given her a fur-lined long white dress and matching boots, a heavy brown jacket and her own muffler. She found out quickly that any space outside of the immediate fire was chilled and made her fingers ache.

_1, 2, 3._

The hallways were long, draped in long shadows, surrounded by the yellow church windows that the snow beat against.

She hadn’t expected to be alone for so long, but the attendants had given her the white gown and a silver pocket watch and left.

_1, 2, 3._

It was almost 7.

Her footsteps echoed off the stones and she passed doors with fine brass handles and thick curtains. The castle was much larger than she first assumed, but the path forward was lit by stray candles and flickering fire lights.

She walked briskly, but that didn’t stop the chill from working down her spine and her eyes from imagining things in the dark. She’s almost running by the time she reached the massive double doors on the second level.

_1, 2, 3._

She forced herself to count and stare at the oak doors of a dining hall.

_1, 2, 3._

_Open it,_ she told herself and tensed, somehow wishing there were more handcuffs or jail cells involved- at least then she wouldn’t have to force her own hand each step of the way.

She heard a gravelly voice on the other side of the door and the clatter of silverware, Anna finally almost tripped over herself to force the door open.

“I’m here,” she made sure the beast knows she’s not flaking on her duties.

Three sets of eyes swivel over to her, Anna stood up straight as two elves and a wolf glanced over at her for a quick second.

Demia turned away again, “She came after all. Bring out the rose silverware again.”

Anna stood there dumbly as one of the Whispering Elves placed a pale pink spoon and knife on the table. It was a square dark wooden table that was oddly small for such a vast room with grand marble floors and a candles lighting each wall in ornate golden holders. Though many of the candles had burned out long ago.

Demia settled into a seat and Anna realized she would be sitting directly in front of her and her piercing yellow gaze. The table only had six place settings, but she wouldn’t be slipping away to the corner for sure.

Anna made a straight-backed journey over to the table and scraped back into a curtsy, a cold sweat crawled down her underarms and she waited.

“Sit,” Demia growled and Anna felt like she was crawling to her place like a small cockroach, antenna out.

She didn’t look up.

A manservant, different then Remfry, poured a bowl of hot soup, she robotically reached for her spoon. She could feel Demia watching her, quietly, consideringly.

“Enjoy.” In Anna’s mind’s eye the wolf-headed woman was licking her chops while saying that, still eyeing her.

She took a piping hot mouthful of soup and swallowed, it went down like volcanic ash bursting into the sky: hot and fast. She pinched herself as her eyes water.

“I said enjoy,” Demia sounded annoyed, “Not hurt yourself.”  
  
That made Anna drag her eyes up, slowly, she swallowed again, “It’s good.”  
  
Wolf’s can’t roll their eyes, but Anna swore she saw an eyeroll. “So, Anna,” The deep rasp addressed her, “What do you think of the castle grounds?”  
  
Anna’s eyes went a little wider and she focused on the thick whiskers of the beast, her mouth fell open and she stuffed it full of soup again. The next swallow is about as good as the first, she shifted in place, “Well, it’s a, very large. Much much better than outside.”

She heard a grough laugh, “I’ll take the compliment.” Demia shook her head. She doesn’t know how to respond so she kept eating, the clattering of silverware filled the room.

Anna’s tongue was thoroughly burned by the time the main course arrived: roasted quail, poached eggs, and cherry tomatoes covered in a butter sauce. Her eyes went wide at the sight and she tried not to drool a little bit.

Demia was still watching her.

“Go on.”  
  
Demia wasn’t eating, she had lapped up the soup it seemed but not when Anna was watching.

“I, yes, thank you.” She tried to put on her accent more prettily, more like the Northern Ladies and people who knew how to weave ribbons in their hair properly.

She dug in quickly, stuffing the quail leg into her mouth followed by a ripe tomato, her eyes water again but for different reasons. She tried not to let the yellow eyes following her mean anything.

“Life in you yet,” it was a murmur, “Let me know if you can taste anything after the soup.”  
  
Anna furrowed her brow, “It’s all delicious. And I can taste all of it.” She chewed thoroughly and took another large mouthful.  
  
Demia gave the same gravely laugh, “Spirited, yes.” Demia gave a long pause, “Though I suppose that’s why you brought this.”  
  
Anna almost choked when Demia yanked the silver knife out of her belt and pushed it across the table. “Very bold of you.”

“It’s,” Anna swallowed painfully around the food. “It’s from my brother.”  
  
Demia’s yellow eyes caught her like nets around a squirming fish, “For plunging through my heart, yes.” A slight bitter laugh from the wolf filled the empty space between them.

Anna leaned away from the table, “It was for… just in case.” She was mumbling now, fingers gripping the table- hard. Demia looked coolly down at her.

“Go on then,” she pushed the knife toward her, “This is your chance.”  
  
Anna’s heartbeat plummeted in her chest and her whole body tensed, “I, uh.”  
  
Demia nudged Anna’s hand with the hilt of the knife, “I’m right here.” She pointed at her heart, “Stick it in.”  
  
Anna scooted away from the table, her eyes searching the air and pulse skittering through her body like a bad hiccup. She accepted the handle into her hands and for a moment, just a moment she imagined saving the kingdom.

Stopping the storm, slaying the beast, burying this nasty edged thing deep into the creatures chest and watching the cruel yellow light leave it’s eyes. She swallowed thickly and let the handle go.

“Can I keep it?” Is all she asked.

Demia’s gaze was glued to where Anna now held it loosely, weakly. Maybe they both knew she didn’t have it in her.

The wolf raised its head, “Am I going to stop you?” The same thundering laugh released from inside her pink mouth, “No, not at all.”  
  
Anna shifted in place again, she quickly reached for the knife and slipped it into her large fur-lined pockets. She sucked on the words ‘thank you,’ she didn’t know how to say them in this context. _Thank you for letting me be able to kill you._

It didn’t come out right any way she phrased it.

Anna doesn’t refuse good food though and finished her plate, leaving it with a clean shiny surface, Demia just hummed deeply as she did. Anna counted to three once more as the plates were taken away.

“Mistress… Apodemia?” She ventured and the wolf wasn’t looking at her for once, but some place just over her shoulder. “Where should I … where shall we… retire?” She wished she practiced this all on the way up here, but it hadn’t occurred to her then.

“I will leave first,” Demia said steadily, “You may follow after and then let Remfry lead you to your room, it will be three doors from mine, though I will find it in bad taste if tonight is when you want try that tiny knife out.”  
  
Anna raised her eyebrows but doesn’t say anything, Demia exhaled. “Stay.”  
  
The wolf drew itself back up to it’s impressive 6 feet and then carefully swept out of the room, Anna’s heartbeat was still deafening as the door closed behind the creature. Leaving her in her wedding dress with the empty plates.

She counted down from ten.

\-----------------

Remfry, as promised, showed her to a large chamber with a single pale blue bed and a stove in the corner warming the stone walls. A single broad window centered in the room with thick velvet curtains and stout wardrobe next to it.

Anna doesn’t look around too thoroughly before she changed into a white nightdress, it’s sheer and came down to her ankles. She had a second nightgown to place over this one, but she sets it aside and lets herself shiver in the loose flimsy fabric.

She glanced to the window and the white snow pelting the glass, the howling of the wind hadn’t ceased a second since she got here. _No wonder they call this a place of madness,_ she thought and listened. She turned toward the door and took a single candle into the hallway.

The orange flame licked the grey walls with it’s small flickering light and it wasn’t hard to spot the only other occupied room in the corridor. Anna went three doors down.

She knocked once but didn’t wait for a response, it was unlocked and she nimbly cracked it open and crept into the dark. She held her candle high in the air and yanked her skirt up to her knees, she shivers from the contact with the cool night air.

Two yellow eyes glowed in the dark, like flares or warning lights, Anna trembled for a moment before taking a bold step forward. She reached tentatively toward the bed, it was a King sized bed with deep purple covers and dark drapes peeled back around the four corners.

Demia sat upright, “What are you-”  
  
“I know,” Anna’s voice came out like a silver flute, warbling and light, she hardened it. “I know the other girls weren’t… satisfactory.” She pushed herself toward the bed and puts one knee up on the thick comforter, “But I can-”  
  
“What are you on about?” It was a full growl this time, Demia looked terse and large as she leaned forward, “If this is how you plan to stab me, I’m not impressed.”  
  
Anna just shook her head vigorously, “The other girls failed.” She said slowly, feeling out each word with her tongue. “I am prepared to do the work.”

Demia seemed to squint at her, “What work?” She seemed genuinely confused.  
  
Anna took a deep breath in and lifted herself up, “To consummate the marriage.” She tried to sound loud and declarative. A long silence stretched out afterwards, Anna started talking again. “As the wolf’s bride, to stop the spread of the storm.”  
  
The wolf’s eyes expanded as the orange light of the candle reflected off them, a throaty laugh followed.  
  
“Haha,” Demia tossed her head back and leaned against the headboard, “That’s a myth you know.”  
  
Anna paused for a long second, trying to put it all together after that. “What? No. Why else would they send girls up here every year?”  
  
Demia gave her a very steady look, “I don’t control the storm.”  
  
Anna’s brow furrowed, “But then why-”  
  
“These aren’t questions for me right now.” Demia’s lips turned down, “And you’re trembling.”  
  
Anna squared her shoulders, “I’m prepared,” she reached out, “Someone needs to stop it from reaching… from reaching everyone else.” _From reaching Tommin._  
  
Demia sighed loudly, “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.”

Anna frowned, but doesn’t say anything. Instead, she inched closer, Demia tensed but doesn’t stop her as Anna’s hand slowly, painfully inched toward Demia’s hand. “You may try,” she said, it was quiet this time, less of a rumble and more of a hiss. “If you can…”  
  
She doesn’t know why she held her breath as her small shaking hand grazed the top of Demia’s, a soft electric touch of human skin against skin. It’s warm.

A beat passes, the air itself seemed to still, coursing and pulsing around them.

Demia closed her eyes, “Of course,” she grumbled, “Of course.”  
  
Anna gathered her skirts up, “Don’t worry, I’ve been thinking about this and it will be simple.”  
  
“Haven’t you done enough?” Demia’s expression grew dark.  
  
Anna clutched onto her hand, holding it a little tighter, Demia flinched back, “Let go!” She snarled, “Stop touching me.”

“But,” Anna stammered as the sound of ice hitting glass filled the air, “But I need to-”  
  
“Get out!”

“Demia,” Anna grasped for something, “We have to stop it.”  
  
Anna reached for her face this time, reach for the massive, unwieldy wolf that sat on top of her shoulder tops.

“Get,” the yellow enormous teeth snapped at her outreached fingers, “Out!”

The sharp incisors almost graze her middle finger and Anna fell backward, dropping the candle and hitting the cold stone floor, bruising her tailbone on impact. “Ah,” she covered her face, but nothing else followed except heavy breathing.

“I won’t miss next time!” It was a roar.

Anna turned over and sped unsteadily of the room, her cheeks burning and thoughts spiraling, this is all she was sent for. All they said she would be good for.

She ran back to her room and crawled under her heavy comforter, shutting her eyes tight: all she saw there was massive hungry teeth inches from ripping into her.

She clutched the knife and curled up around it, she focused on the faces of her brothers and nothing else.

\-----------------  
The next morning was awash in a weak white light that swept her bedroom in an otherworldly cold glow, freezing the air into a still calm. The storm had slowed for a moment.

Anna tried to stay in bed until the last possible moment, until her stomach turned in on itself and her throat begged for water. She pleaded with it to allow her to stay in bed for a while longer, her face still burning.

It was one thing to be rejected, it was another thing to be rejected for the one purpose she was sent here for.

She groaned into her pillow and prayed to some unseen god of frightened seductresses, if that existed at all.

It’s well past mid-day by the time she eeks herself out of the soft covers and goes searching for a chamber pot. Even the rugs were cold against her bare feet and she wrinkled her nose as she yanked on her warm white gown again.

“Of course,” a dullness settled over her, heavy with her own failure and lack of sleep. “Of course.” She repeated the words from last night over and over.

She took a deep breath in through her nose and faced the single mirror in the room, “you’re looking… handsome today.” She tried lightly. “I was so happy to be… chosen. For this.”  
  
Her mirror said nothing back and her stomach made a noise that only deep sea krakens would recognize. She braved the hallways once again, sticking her head out from behind each corner before dashing toward the next one.

Maybe she would be eaten that day. Maybe she would be wed.

There were only rumors to go off of, but one truth: they could stop the storm from reaching Tommin and the rest of Sanders if she did this.

If she could get over herself.

A full meal was waiting for her when she reached the kitchen: deviled eggs and warm buttered toast, thick porridge with sweet strawberry jam on the side. Anna could barely contain herself when she saw it, she wished she could rush it back to her whole family at once.

Instead, she forced herself to sit at the kitchen counter and eat every last bite, though forced was a strong word for something she almost wept at.

A thought started to turn in the back of her mind, not entirely a plan yet but something spinning round and round like a golden top.

She started to wander the halls.

\---------------

The hallways of High Castle were broad and roomy, three people could easily walk side by side down their length. The rooms themselves were kept neat and ancient furniture was tidily hidden under massive white sheets in each one, a dust seemed to settle over everything like a fine frost.

Anna peeked into giant ballrooms with marble floors and unlit gilded chandeliers, she passed doors as big as church bells with silent brass knockers and staircases that spiraled and wound themselves around in knots.  
  
She slid past winding corridors and drafty servants quarters that appeared to be empty. She didn’t bother with the stairs who led deeper into the dungeons and bowels of the palace. Who knew what the High Castle hid just below the surface.

She kept walking.

Overall, it was so much larger and more grand than she expected, much lonelier too. She passed a stray Whispering Elf ever so often, it’s long hair pulled back and eyes following her like carefully attached shadows.

Her skin prickled but neither of them addressed one another, Anna didn’t know how to ask: ‘hey, what’s up this place?’ and furthermore she couldn’t bare to think about them somehow knowing about last night.

She didn’t know how a conversation like ‘this stranger offered herself to me, but she was so scrawny and weird-smelling I kicked her out, let’s laugh about it’ went but her imagination was filling in the blanks.

She was thinking about Demia’s wolfish rattling laugh when she first paused in her ventures. Her footsteps were echoing off of an enormous staircase with ivory steps and red polished banisters. There were two twin staircases that met in the middle, her eyebrows rose when she looked out upon another great hall.

This one had white stone floors and the largest windows she had seen yet: they were frosted and pale, silver frames shone on either side and a giant could climb through either one. Between the two spectacular windows were massive double doors.

They were dark, a cedar wood maybe, with a threaded design overlaying the wood: swirls and floral patterns weeping into each other. In the very center was a massive star with five points and a glinting outline.

She took her time making it to the ground, it appeared she had found the front doors of the castle, she looked them up and down. “Huh,” her own voice echoed off the walls and she can hear the endless throttle of winter beating against the doors from outside.

She placed her hand on the wood and traced one of the designs up and down. She hummed again deeply and placed her other hand on the door handle, it was large and solid to the touch.

She shivered slightly but inspected the locks and hinges. Finally, she pulled on it experimentally, first gently, then, impulsively, she yanked the door with all her might.

For a moment it doesn’t budge, standing heavy and stubbornly in front of her, she throws all of her weight behind her next tug and leaned backward. The door gave one reluctant grind, though she doubted she could move it all on her own.

She realized that it wasn’t locked. None of the doors were locked. She peered at the crack for a moment, thinking of yanking it fully open and throwing herself back into the snow.

_Maybe this time I could make it home._

She furrowed her brow, pushed the door shut again and then turned and started walking back into the depths of the castle.

\----------------------

It’s almost 4pm when Anna heard the first indication of life in the thick castle walls. She was wandering past a silent room with just one dead clock in the center when she heard a melodic tune carrying through the air. It was the weeping sound of a string instrument.

A slow and practiced song that was barely audible through the empty halls, Anna only hesitated for a moment before following it through the winding corridors. She passed her own bedroom and found her way to the west wing of the castle.

The sound of the violin became sharper and more pronounced, Anna slowed down as she reached the end of the hall. A simple wooden door stood at the end with the music pouring out.

She clenched her jaw and stood perfectly still outside of it, she doubted a Whispering Elf would value making so much noise. She had only one guess on who was playing.

 _There’s no avoiding this forever,_ Anna took a deep breath and carefully, jerkily knocked on the door.

The music stopped, a thoughtful moment passed. “Have you come to seduce me again?” Anna’s eyes went huge and it took everything in her to not turn around and run to the other end of the castle. Maybe back out into the mountains themselves. “I’m teasing.”

She spoke through a clenched jaw, “Can I come in?”  
  
A deep hum responded to her, “Are you clothed?”  
  
“Oh my God,” Anna wished she wasn’t above cursing out enchanted demon creatures right then.  
  
“I’m joking Anna, come in.” The voice sounded just as deadpan and cheerless as before.

Anna fidgeted in place for a moment before pushing the door open, she’s unsurprised to see the wolf holding a violin in it’s human hands.

Anna looked between the instrument and the wolf’s canine chin. She furrowed her brow, “How do you play?”  
  
Something like amusement shone in Demia’s eyes, “With great difficulty. Is that what you came about?”  
  
“It’s very pretty.” She said slowly, “But no.”

Demia nodded, “Thank you. It’s been almost a year since I had anyone to play for.”  
  
“Did the other girls not appreciate the music?” Anna asked, genuinely curious this time.

Demia looked Anna up and down, “Very few sought me out. Even less stuck around long enough for my Sunday playing sessions.”  
  
“Oh,” Anna blinked a couple times, “Oh yes, it’s Sunday. I forgot.”

  
The wolf nodded, “If you stay even one more day I might even compose a song for you too, Anna, the Little Knife One.”  
  
A smile almost twitched on her lips, “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”  
  
The sound of a rough laugh erupted, soft and short, “How could I?” Demia sat up straight in a high-backed chair, it seemed to be a study room with music sheets spread out on a desk and floors. Several pictures were propped up against the books, one of a doleful woman and son looking out of portrait and another of a man with a thick mustache. It was one of the very few rooms Anna had found that looked lived in. “But that’s not what you came to talk about.”  
  
Anna looked down at her feet, she studied the white laces for a moment, her hands balled up and muscles taut.

“No.” She swallowed around the word, “No. It isn’t.”

“If it’s about last night,” Demia put her instrument in a fine black case with a satin inlet. “I don’t have much to say. You obviously may go if you wish.”  
  
“Oh,” Anna opened her mouth and then closed it, “Go?”  
  
The wolf just nodded, “Go.”  
  
“I-I,” she struggled for a long moment, “I failed you, didn’t I?” She asked in a small voice, _I failed the whole kingdom already._

Demia lifted her chin, “It isn’t like that.” There was something soft about the way she said it, “There is much you don’t understand. But yes, there is no need to stay.”  
  
Anna’s heart sank, she couldn’t stop a strained laugh from leaving her mouth, “And here I thought this was the part where you eat the girls.”  
  
Demia’s yellow eyes narrowed, “So you came to be eaten?”  
  
Anna shook her head, “No… no I figured that was just one of the rumors.”  
  
Demia’s expression relaxed again, “Most of the girls don’t return to their villages after I release them I assume.”  
  
Anna’s head sagged down and some of her hair fell into her face, “So that’s it? The storm just keeps spreading?”  
  
Demia twitched slightly, one of her ears flicking back for a moment, “I don’t control the storm.”  
  
Anna frowned deeply and then, without warning, she sank to her knees. Her heart throbbed painfully in her chest, “Mistress Demia,” she said in a low voice, her head bent down as she looked toward her toes, “I have a request.”  
  
“Oh?” The wolf’s voice rolled as she said it.

“I never signed up to be the bride.”  
  
“They never do,” the wolf said with a hush.

“But… I need something.”  
  
“Unless it’s a handful of snow or a farewell song, I doubt I can offer much.”  
  
Anna looked up sharply, “Tommin is in danger.”  
  
Demia’s eyes narrowed, “I can’t-”  
  
“I need to earn enough money to send my family somewhere else.” Anna said clearly, loudly. “Please? Could you take another servant?”  
  
Demia sat back in her chair and looked placidly down, “I have enough servants.” She said with a drawl, “And I don’t have as much wealth as you might think.”  
  
“I know they send treasures up to you.” Anna’s eyes were wide, “To bribe you to stop the storm.”  
  
Demia was quiet for a long moment, “I. Have. Enough. Servants.” She said again, thoroughly, warily.

Anna’s shoulders hunched, “I am the daughter of a candlestick maker.” She tried to project as firmly as she could, “And many of your lights have burned down to their wick.”  
  
Demia’s great head tilted to the side, “I can buy more.”  
  
“But the walk must be… treacherous,” Anna said carefully, quickly, “And I can make more! Cheaper! And it so dark in this place.”  
  
Demia paused, her human hand tapped on the arm of her chair, “Candles, huh.”

Anna nodded furiously, “And I won’t try to sleep with you again!”

Demia gave a booming laugh, “I don’t normally pay people for that service.”  
  
Anna gave a small chuckle and then shuffled a little closer on her knees, “Please.”  
  
Demia closed her mouth and looked out to the nearest yellow window, she turned back to Anna slowly. “Very well,” Demia put her hand out, “But you must know. The castle will consider you The Bride for as long as you are in its walls, servant or not.”  
  
Anna didn’t know what that meant, but she nodded nonetheless. “I will be the servant-bride then, as long as you pay me... 100 Cicles by March at least.”  
  
The wolf just nodded, “And then you must leave.”  
  
She didn’t hesitate, she took the wolf’s hand and shook. The servant-Bride, if Demia couldn’t save the kingdom than at least she could get her family as far away from it as possible.

Crescendos of violin music play as she leaves the room again and promised herself she wouldn’t have to see the wolf much after this. Though she lingered in the hallway to listen anyway.

\---------------------------------

Anna’s room wasn’t changed, but she was given her own personal workroom on the second level. She had to admit she was a little fond of having a whole entire room dedicated to her own space.

She even painted her name in thick black letters and hung a wooden sign outside the door: Anna’s.

They gifted her a simple brown work dress and a pair of leather gloves and face mask. The mask was one used by doctors during plagues, but it would do nonetheless.

To her surprise the castle was well stocked in many things, some part of her guessed it must have a vast storage space underneath- that’s the only way a place like this could survive an eternal winter. Nonetheless, she didn’t expect the vats of tallow from the kitchens, the set of wicks from almost a decade ago, and a box full of glass jars.

It would be harder make the number of candles needed without a moulding set or double-iron cauldron, but she would make do, she’d been watching her family make candles out of nothing since she was born.

Anna got to work melting down the animal fats and setting the wax, though she almost gagged a couple times from the smell. Her family had specialized in paraffin wax and beeswax, very few sellers worked with animal fats anymore.

She pushed through for the sake of keeping her new occupation, time seemed to pass very quickly despite her brothers not yammering through the process or knocking anything over. Her chest tightened at the memory and took a couple deep breath of the rotting smell just to keep her mind off anything else.

The fats melted slowly and Anna only had a handful of candles by the end of the first day, but at least she had something to show for her work.

She was sweating and probably not smelling like a proper member of society when she went back to her room that night. She opened the door to find a plate full of food: fresh baked brown bread, a thick cut of salted meat, green lettuce drizzled in poppyseed dressing, and yellow custard in a round white bowl.

A note lay next to the tray: for our new candlemaker, the little knife girl.

She eats at a little desk and something rumbles deep in her chest.

\---------------------

She lost track of time in the castle, between the endless white storm outside and the quiet days sweating and carving out pretty white candles the days started to bleed together.

She told herself it was for the best, time bleeding together would make this all pass quickly as she began to replace the candles in the castle one by one. She found the burnt corpses of wicks and whittled her own candles into shape to make them the new perfect fit for the holders.

She melted and cooled and crafted and Anna forgot, the elves rarely graced her with their presence and the echoing of the castle became almost background noise. It was only on some late nights that she heard the nascent violin again.

And she forgot.

It was around the second week when someone came to call on her again.

She was carefully, slowly, lowering wicks into a fine batch of cooling animal fat when she heard a knock on the door. Anna doesn’t register it at first, her brain couldn’t quite grasp someone else being here at all.

And then a second knock came at the door.

She whipped around at the sound, “Hello?” It was an almost frightened sound.  
  
“Are you busy little candle maker?”  
  
She jerked into a full standing position when she recognized the growling voice, “Mistress Demia?”  
  
The door swung open, “Good.”

Anna jut her jaw out, “Is something… has anything happened?” She tried to phrase a question, her eyes were still often distracted by the whiskers and ears of the great wolf.

But Demia seemed less looming than usual, she put her hand out. “Have you been out of here all day?” She snapped.

Anna put her hands on her hips, “I still have three more rooms to replace the candles for today.”  
  
Demia shook her head, “It’s the second week.”  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Come with me,” Demia started to gesture. “You’ll thank me later.”  
  
Anna took a step back and then realized it was best not to deny her mistress, she still hesitated.

“Come along,” Demia beckoned, “There’s still a few more things to learn about living in High Castle.”  
  
Anna frowned but stripped her work gloves off, “I should change.” She finally said, “I must smell like-”  
  
“Trust me,” Demia wrinkled her great black nose, “I can smell you. And it doesn’t matter, just come with me.”  
  
Anna made a face, “Well, I’m sure this is you asking nicely. Fine.”  
  
Anna swore she saw Demia wink, “I’m a beast, remember?” She held the door open, “I don’t have to do anything nicely.”  
  
She gave a soft chuckle and followed the other woman through the castle. “Where is it you wanted to take me?” Her voice felt dusty and strange from disuse.

Demia just kept walking and Anna kept her eyes on her, some spark of mistrust still tingling in the back of her mind.

“Do you know anything about winter Miss Anna?”  
  
Anna almost stumbled over her feet, “I know this happens to be a very long one.”  
  
Demia snorted, which was a rough guttural sound. “You should aim to be as smart as you are pretty and maybe we’ll get somewhere.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Let me rephrase: do you know the effects of winter?”  
  
“Cold?”  
  
“Very good,” Demia said dryly, “I won’t send you to the dunce corner out of mercy.”  
  
Anna grumbled to herself, “Do I have to beg you for the answer, or were you actually a riddle-master before this?”  
  
Demia laughed, “I’m trying to have to this make sense. But very well, I’ll keep it simple.”  
  
“Good,” Anna gave a slow curving smile, “Because I am only half as smart as I am pretty, but only as pretty as I am smart.”  
  
A beat passed, “I’m kicking out of the castle.”  
  
Anna made a sound that might even quality as a ‘giggle,’ “And who will light these drafty hallways, hmm?”  
  
“Well, I can think of someone,” Demia paused at a small brown door, “but they wouldn’t like it very much.”  
  
“What?” Anna was growing even more confused.

“Follow me,” the brown door led to a series of dank steps that carved deep into the lower chambers of the castle.

Anna hesitated, _this is exactly where I didn’t want to go._

Demia glanced over her shoulder, “I can get someone to come hold your hand if you’re scared.”

Anna scowled slightly, “Just show me this riddle.”  
  
“Not a riddle,” they kept walking down to the dungeons, “But you must wonder how we get fresh food here.”  
  
“I mean,” she had been, “Magic? Wealth?”  
  
Demia another soft sound, “Have you been feeling any… less energetic since you got here?”  
  
“I suppose?” She squinted at the back of Demia’s head, “But it might be the decorating scheme though, silver really doesn’t go with everything, it’s been getting me down.”  
  
“I’m ignoring that,” water dripped from somewhere as they walked deeper into the dark stairwell, a solid looking metal door loomed ahead. “I am trying to make your time here… tolerable.”  
  
“Thank,” she said haltingly, “Thank you?” It was a question.  
  
“Ugh,” Demia grumbled, “Just follow me.” She stopped at the metal doors and tapped on it rhymically, Anna took a step back, wondering if perhaps the winds did knock something loose in her head.

A small, twinkling sound came from within and Anna took another step back. The door swung open from the inside.

“Wha…” She trailed off. A little orange light stared back at her. A little orange light with wings and a pointed bird-like face, petals wrapped around the torso and a sharp smiling mouth.

“Anna,” Demia said steadily, “Meet the Sun Fairies.”

Anna’s mouth was hanging open, “What.”  
  
Demia walked in without seeing if Anna was following, Anna followed anyway. They enter a brightly lit dungeon room with rows upon rows of leafy plants.

Anna’s face went slack, “Well this is a riddle.”  
  
Demia looked over her shoulder, humor glinting her eyes, “Welcome to the palace gardens.”

The next room had stone walls and floors of a dungeon: dark walls with deep crevices and a slightly damp appearance to them. However, nothing else in the room was like a dungeon.

On top of high tables sat rows and rows of potted plants: cherry tomatoes with tiny green bulbs, lettuce leaves sprouting out of rich black soil, basil sprouts, small blueberry bushes, and the outline of what must be a small tree farther down. Intermixed with the greenery were small floating orange lights that were about the size of her hand.

They all had delicate soft bodies dressed in orange gowns and long pants, tiny shoes, and little gloves. Their faces were all sharp and pointed with large orb-like eyes, their wings were twice the size of their body but rarely seemed to flap.

Orange Sun Fairies that flitted in between the plants, sprinkling them with mists of rain or petting their pretty green stems. Anna could feel the heat radiating off each of their bodies.

 _I think I need to sit down,_ she swayed in place.

“Here,” Demia ushered her over, “Take a seat, and get comfortable.”  
  
Anna looked up in a daze at her, “Why?”  
  
Demia was rolling up her sleeves and looking off into the distance, “The sun is good for you.” She responded simply, “if we don’t take in some of its light at least weekly than you will start feeling… bad.” She said plainly.

Anna tilted her head to the side, “How bad?”  
  
Demia shrugged, “Just sit in the light for a while. You’ll feel better.”  
  
Anna gave a dramatic sigh, “As long as it’s not docked from my pay.”  
  
Demia pulled over a wooden chair and gestured for Anna to sit, “Don’t worry.” She took a seat, “I just won’t tell the boss.”  
  
That made Anna smile, though she’s not entirely sure why.

She finally gave in and they sat next to each other in rickety wooden chairs, basking in the light of tiny moving creatures.

Anna took a deep breath, tapping her fingers on her leg, she started bouncing and fidgeting a little bit as she waited. She glanced at Demia a couple times.

“So,” she looked back and forth as they just sat there, “Do you come here often?”  
  
Demia’s yellow eyes finally turned on her, “You’re not terribly good at sitting still I take it.”  
  
Anna made a ‘so-so’ gesture, “I work with my hands. It’s part of the trade.”  
  
Demia’s large maw cracked open into something that might be a smile, “Did you run the business all by yourself back home?”  
  
Anna hummed, “No?” She said slowly, “No. I had my father and siblings.”  
  
“How many?” Demia prompted.

“Two. Two brothers,” Anna took a deep breath, “We did the whole process together.” She can’t keep the smile out of her voice.

“Do you miss them?”  
  
Anna just nodded.

Demia made a soft sound, “you must care about them a lot to stay here for the money.”  
  
Anna just nodded again.

“What are their names?”  
  
“Callum and Drake, Callum’s the older one, a right snot but his heart is usually in the right place.” Anna rolled her sleeves up more and relaxed into the chair, “Drake is a genuinely sweet boy, but he’s getting into a touchy phase. Won’t even let us ask him how his day was without groaning.”  
  
Demia chuckled, “Did they follow you in dates like they do in the books?”  
  
Anna laughed at that too, “Dates? Absolutely not. Though I would never heard the end of it from them if I ever went on one.”  
  
They are both smiling, for just a moment.

“Tell me about them,” Demia asked simply.

“Well, Callum loves apples and once kissed the baker’s son for a piece of apple pie, Drake counts dandelion’s we see and I never really…”

She told her about Callum’s sweet tooth and Drakes bad ankle and carrying him home after school some days. She told her about the brother’s pranks on their neighbors which she only occasionally joined in on. She told her about singing them to sleep at night.

Anna only paused once to look back at Demia, “Why do you want to know?” She finally asked.

Demia leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, “Just curious.” She rumbled, “I never knew many common folk to be perfectly honest.”  
  
Anna propped her chin up on her hand, “What was your family like?”  
  
“Rich.”  
  
Anna snorted, “I assumed so.” She looked Demia up and down, “What did they do?”  
  
Anna looked back at her, “They owned land and so on. My father was a concert pianist until he broke his hand in a silly duel. He never played after that.”  
  
Anna raised her eyebrows, “Did he teach you how to play the violin?”

Demia’s sharp teeth shone as she grinned almost cruelly. “No. He just wanted me to take his place in the limelight.” She shook her head, “No Grandmaster Lewis taught me how to play.”  
  
Anna’s mouth fell open, “A Grandmaster?”

“It’s a long story,” Demia said with a light wave of her hand.

Anna settled in, “I have a time.”  
  
Demia took a moment to look over to her, expression somber. Finally, she cleared her throat, “Very well.”  
  
She told Anna of a dare and an ale house quarrel that led to the Grandmaster at the their doorstep looking for allys. They did so in exchange for lessons, many lessons, and then the Grandmaster kept coming back anyways to teach Demia.

Anna just nodded along, “Did you live… nearby?” She tried to wiggle out more information.

Demia sat up straighter. “No.” She said simply, “Not at all.”  
  
Anna opened her mouth to keep asking but then thought better of it, instead, she picked at her nails.

Demia turned toward, “Did you like music Anna?”  
  
Anna just shook her head, “My mother sang sometimes, but everyone said she wasn’t very good at it.” The memory made her smile.

“I assume… she’s gone?” Demia asked tactfully.

Anna looked down at her hands, “She left.” Anna swallowed something down, “When Drake was two. My dad’s business was failing and she said she was going to go get a job in the next town as a maid. She stopped writing five months in.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Yeah,” Anna looked away, “We get along though, dad and my brothers. Dad was never quite the same, but we got along alright.”  
  
“But did you?” Demia prompted in a voice that could even be described as ‘soft.’  
  
Anna gave a deep sigh, “I got on fine.” She shrugged, “I had to do more chores and take care of my brothers, but it was… fine.” She doesn’t look up as she says it, “Though this is honestly the most free time I’ve had in years.”  
  
Demia was still watching her. “What did you do in your free time back home?”  
  
Anna blinked, “What do you mean?” She furrowed her brow, “Like what?”

“Like,” Demia struggled with something, it was almost comical. “Read, embroider, skip stones, write letters, tell lies-”  
  
Anna laughed, “None of those things.” She shook her head, “I haven’t even read much of anything since I left the 7th grade.”  
  
Anna could swear Demia’s eyes got large at that, “Oh,” she said in a quiet voice. “Well we have books here if you’d like to try again.”  
  
Anna made a face, “I don’t suppose I’d be very good at it anymore. I never was.”  
  
Demia just nodded, “Well I’m very good at reading.”  
  
“Good for you,” she said dryly.

“No, no, I mean,” For the first time Demia seemed to squirm, “If you ever want, if you ever need- oh never mind.”  
  
Anna laughed, “But you know what! I did once win the village jump roping competition during the fair. Me and Missy Fiora. I jumped for four minutes straight and did a cartwheel trick.”  
  
Demia was grinning a little again, “I’ve never jumped rope.”  
  
Anna winked, “If you ever want,” she joked, “Or need. I’m sure I could teach you.”  
  
Demia sniffed loudly, “Wolves don’t jump rope.”  
  
“Nonsense!”

They share a short laugh and for once Anna wasn’t thinking about being eaten or buried alive in the snow. It was a nice moment.

\-------------------

Remfry walked her home from the ‘Sun Fairy Room’ that night, Demia offered to lead her back but Anna wanted to stay just a little longer. She liked the light.

Remfry had been sent around 10, he gestured at her and whispered that she could be sunburned if she did this any longer. Anna followed him.

They climb silently up the dungeon stairs again and Anna stared decidedly at the back of his head. She squared her shoulders, “Hey Remfry.” She spoke up, struggling with something for a moment.

He glanced over his shoulder and a hissing ‘yes?’ replied.

“Does Demia…” She tried to phrase her question as best she could, “Does anyone know how to stop the storm? I mean, if she doesn’t know how to.”  
  
Remfry raised his long eyebrows, but doesn’t say anything. They climb the rest of the stairs in silence and a disappointment settled in Anna’s gut.

Remfry paused at the top of the stairs and turned around on her, “hold the warm thing.” He said slowly, “And bring it close to you.”  
  
“Uh,” Anna furrowed her brow but Remfry was already dipping into the next hallway and Anna has nothing to do but follow.

“What does that mean?” She called after him but doesn’t get a reply.

She is more confused than she was before, but she found herself not lingering on Remfry’s strange saying, but, instead, on the look in Demia’s eyes while they talked.

Some strange ache in her settled in her core.

\------------------

They started to talk, it might have been something about being the only two people in a large caste of nothing but echoes. Maybe it was something in the water, maybe it was everything else in between.

It started at their weekly ‘Sun Room’ meetings when they basked under the fairy light for two hours every week. They talked about the food, the draft, gardening, books, and, only ever ironically, the weather.

Questions started bubbling up from deep within Anna: how did the elves get here? Were you all here when the storm started? Who did the hunting for the meat? Was it true she saw everything in black and white? How long had she played music for?  
  
Demia was usually cagey and answered about one in every five questions she asked. Anna only learned that one of the elves did the hunting, Demia saw dulled versions of other colors, and she learned to play violin from a Grandmaster years ago.

Demia especially liked the violin conversation, she excitedly brought up her favorite composers and the laughability of Jocel’s fifth symphony. She explained the basics of tuning and upkeep, the cold apparently made it especially difficult.

Anna remembered grinning as Demia explained the tone system and current compositions she was working on.

“Do you compose your own work?” Anna asked curiously and Demia grew still for a moment.

“Yes…” She had said hesitantly, “I never thought I would play again after… well, I began to compose again only a few months ago.”  
  
Anna raised her eyebrows but doesn’t press her on the topic.

If Anna was gradually curious about the life she entered into than Demia was insatiable for information on Anna’s old life.  
  
When did she get up in the morning? What did she sell? What was the market like? Did she sell scented candles? What did she eat? What did she wear? Where did her family come from?  
  
Anna wasn’t used to being prompted for every detail of her life, but she found herself strangely flattered. She started to babble, her life, her dresses, her jumprope days, the night she lost three baby teeth in one hour.

Demia kept the questions coming in her calm disinterested way.

Their weekly Sun Meetings quickly went from one hour, to two, to late night discussions of the novelization of the Witch of Winthrop play. Anna was embarrassed to admit that she couldn’t read most of it.

They started to meet by the fire and Demia would trace letters for her and teach her one by one to chew through them. Slowly, Anna was reading again. Anna was speaking again.

Anna was starting to think she may stay until May.

\---------------------

“No, you see,” Anna was twirling a silver hairbrush around in the air, “Callisae had no choice but to fight the sea serpent. She couldn’t make a deal with him, he would just trick her again.”  
  
Demia was shaking her head, “I don’t think you understand the serpents motivation.”  
  
“Motivation my foot!”

“He doesn’t want the jewels!” She snapped back, “He wants what they represent.”  
  
“He would sell his mother for the jewels just ‘cause they’re shiny,” Anna shot back and they continued their bickering as the book lay open between them.

Their shoulders were almost touching, but Anna was getting used to this sort of thing. It was hard not to miss a brief brush of contact or moment of closeness after the long months.

She picked at the edges of the book and the fire crackled in her ear. Anna glanced over at Demia a couple times, “Hey… Demia?” She asked softly.

Her eyes were still focused on the page, “Yes?”  
  
“How,” Anna paused for a few seconds, “How did you end up in the castle anyway?” Demia looked up slowly and looked at her, “I mean,” Anna shifted in place, “I know you weren’t born here.” She was hoping this was the night Demia might reveal some answers.  
  
Demia blinked a couple times, “I walked.”  
  
“Oh,” Anna scooted a little closer to her, “But it must have gotten very lonely here.”  
  
Demia smiled slightly, it was easier to recognize when her face was stretched into smiles now, “I have Remfry and the rest of the elves.” She said slowly.

“Okay,” Anna propped herself up, “But can you leave?”  
  
The wolf’s brow furrowed, “What a strange question, why?”  
  
Anna shrugged loosely, “There’s something I want to show you.”  
  
Demia cocked her head to the side, “I’ve seen many things in this world. I promise you, I don’t need more at this point.”  
  
Anna made a face, “Have you heard of Sanders City?”  
  
“Of course.”  
  
Anna nodded a few times, “My friend Ashe had tickets to a symphony there in June, surely they wouldn’t mind-”  
  
Anna was interrupted with a quiet laugh, “That’s very sweet,” she said slowly, “But I doubt they have a seating section for… canines.”  
  
Anna inched a little closer, “What about a huge hat? Or a veil?”  
  
Demia just hunched over slightly, “No!” She growled, “Don’t fill your head with silliness. This is my home, this is where I stay.”  
  
“Demia,” Anna reached out and, unthinkingly, their hands are overlaid. Her fingers resting on top of the other womans. She paused, breath catching in her throat, “Oh! Sorry.”  
  
Demia flipped over her hand and for a moment, just a moment, their hands meet. Demia looked up and Anna gazes at the shining yellow of her eyes, something in her aches.

“It’s been a long few months…” She muttered. “Th-thank you for housing me.” She didn’t know what she was saying, but she was falling forward, closing in.

Demia lets go of her hand, “Think nothing of it.” She turned herself over on the floor, “And we can have our own symphony, here.” Demia got back up and retreated toward her violin, “I have a new piece for you.”

Anna sat up on the floor and sighed, she didn’t know what she had been thinking but her heart was still pounding from it. _You can’t have such thoughts for a wolf._

Even if she was still technically the bride here.

Demia played her a fast song with a jaunty melody she called ‘springtime.’ It has a few new additions and a very sweet last bar that slowed down to a humming adagio.

Anna clapped with gusto as it ended, “What’s that one called?”  
  
Demia doesn’t look over at her, “It’s a new one.” She said simply, “About foolish youth and stubbornness.”

She cocked her head to the side, “What?”  
  
Demia shrugged, “I’m calling it ‘Anna.’”

Anna swallowed her heart and howl of the wind outside is all she hears. She wondered if Hessia had other magics in it, other magics to make you lose yourself in things you never expected.

Something in her doesn’t protest.

\---------------------------

The days ran into weeks and the weeks into months. Anna had no sense of seasons anymore, but she could swear by then it was spring again.

It didn’t matter to her.

Maybe things would have never changed, making candles, sharing meals, listening to the music play and the storm Howl. But maybe it was always going to change.

Anna was walking down the hallway with her newly-dried laundry, they had to dry it in the dungeons with the fairies since they couldn’t hang it outside. The first thing she heard was the din of distant footsteps.

Anna stopped in place, Whispering Elves didn’t make noise when they walked, Anna glanced toward the end of the hall. One end was Demia’s music room and the other was just an empty entranceway to the hall.

“Hello?” She called to the door.

A wolf snout stuck out, “Yes?” Demia said back, Anna just shook her head.

“Nothing.” She adjusted the laundry basket on her hip, “Just… hearing things.”  
  
She listened again for footsteps but came back empty, Anna hunched her shoulders and started toward her room again, muttering about hearing things again. Then she swore she heard a set of hurried steps.

She waited again for sound, but hears nothing but the storm.  
  
“God,” Her heartbeat was beating strongly despite herself, Anna quickly jogged to her room and kept her eyes on the end of the hall. She let the door stay open as she started folding her clothes into neat piles.

Anna’s hands are wrestling with some long sheets when the sound of soft footsteps echoes against the stones, Anna rushed to the door this time. “Who’s there?” She called to the nothingness.

A shiver ran down her spine when she sees an empty hallway, she looked left and right before going back into her room. She dug through her drawers until she retrieved a long thin silver knife, she stuck it into her dress pocket.

Anna turned back to the door, she squared her shoulders and set her jaw, she walked quickly toward the end of the hall. “Hello?” She called out, “Show yourself!”

She turned around in circles, keeping her ears pricked for any sight movement. Anna hugged her sides and reached into her pocket to hold the hilt of the knife. She crept slowly away from the music away, searching the ground as she went.

She exhaled when she checked the next corner and found nothing. “Phew,” she shook her head and turned around.

“Mmph!” Anna screamed as a hand came flying over her mouth.

 _Oh no_ , she tried to bite down immediately.

“Sshh, shush, Anna it’s me.”

Anna’s eyes went wide, her head spun, she glanced over her shoulder to see her younger brother standing behind her with his hand over her mouth. She struggled to start talking again.

“Don’t scream.” Callum released her.

Anna’s breathed heavily, “What are,” she sputtered, “What are you doing here?!”  
  
Callum had grown at least three inches, his chest was broader now and his voice seemed to have dropped an octave. His black hair was a little more close-cut and there was a small scar by his right eye.

He stood up tall, he was wearing a thick fur coat and wet shoes, he must have just made the climb.

“How did you get here?” She looked him up and down.

Callum reached out a gloved hand, “I came to get you.” He said softly, “My God.” He reached forward and yanked her into a rough hug, “My God, I thought you’d be dead.”  
  
She wrapped her arms around him quickly, “I’ve missed you.” She squeezed her eyes shut and held him hard to her, trying not to question this for a moment.  
  
She heard a hiccup in his breath, “I can’t believe you’re alive.”  
  
They stay like that for a moment, hugging in the shadows- just like how they parted all those months ago.

Anna released him so she could get a look at him, “Callum,” she said quickly, “what’s happened?” She grinned, “You’ve gotten so tall!”

Callum shook his head, “We don’t have time for any of that Anna, we have to go.”  
  
The smile faded from Anna’s face, “Go where? I can’t back to the village. It’s not allowed. Oh!” She paused, “But I do have some money I can send back with you for now.”  
  
Callum’s face hardened, “We don’t need money, we need you.” He turned toward the other end of the hall, “And I have a way to allow you back.”  
  
Anna’s mouth fell open as she spotted the short sword strapped to Callum’s side, he drew a military-issued blade. Anna’s brow knit together, “What? No, Callum,” she gave a high-pitched nervous laugh. “What are you doing?”

“You don’t have to watch,” he started advancing on the only other door with light under it.

Her feet moved before anything else, “No, no, no.” Anna shoved herself infront of her brother and the door, “it’s not like that. None of this is what you think.”  
  
Callum shook his head, “Look, I know she hasn’t eaten you all these months,” he said gruffly, “But you don’t have to protect her. You’re not thinking straight. I’ll make it quick.”  
  
“Give me that,” Anna reached for his sword to tear it out of his hands, he jumped backward. “Come on now.”  
  
She dove for the sword and Callum wrestled it backward, “You’re not thinking right!” He yelled again and they struggle for the weapon.

In the commotion the small dagger fell out Anna’s pocket, she reached for but Callum is faster.

“I’m here to save you!” He grabbed the knife, draws it back and stabbed the middle of her skirt, embedding the knife in one of the cracks in the floor.

“Ah!” Anna tugged the knife, but it was firmly lodged there.

“Wait for me here sister,” Callum bent forward and kissed her forehead before pivoting into the next room. He cracked the door open to glide in.

“I thought I heard something happening out there,” Demia’s voice carried lightly, “And who might you be?”  
  
Callum didn’t respond, Anna started tearing at her dress to get it free, but it’s a slow process wit the thick material.

“What are you doing?” A deep growl resounded from Demia’s chest. “Stay back.”  
  
“No,” Anna whispered and tugged harder.

“Stay put beast,” Her brother roared, “I’m here to end this.”

A rumbling howl resounded against the walls and Anna heard things being knocked over and heavy stomping. “Fuck it!” Anna tore the whole end of her skirt off and scrambled to get back to her feet.

“Callum!” She screamed, “Demia isn’t bad!” She tried to search for words to stop her brother, “She’s not a monster!”

She burst into the room to see Callum with his sword drawn, chest heaving and Demia snarling and circling him.

“This is for you Anna!” Callum shouted back, and then he’s lunging again. Time seemed to slow down, Anna threw herself forward, trying reach either of them in time.

Demia’s massive jaws opened and her teeth are poised to rip into Callum’s arm, tear through his weak flesh and gnash his arm in two. However, Demia doesn’t. Her mouth remained open and frozen, useless, the end of the sword plunged into her shoulder blade.

A fantastical chilling howl rocketed through the air, Demia lets out an unearthly wail. “No!” Anna’s voice joined in, a cry being ripped from her throat.

And then another figure rushed into the room, moving like a silver shadow and a burst of hissing whispering. Remfry put his hand on Callum’s shoulder and the other boy collapsed immediately.

Tears sprung to Anna’s eyes and she fell to her knees, “Oh God.”  
  
Remfry eased Callum down onto the floor, Anna glanced at him to make sure his chest was still raising and fall. “Oh God,” She crawled over to Demia next as fast as she could, eyes trailing down the other’s woman’s form.

A large expanding circle of blood was soaking her clothes, the sword still lodged into her shoulder, Anna watched in horror as Demia grabbed the sword with her hands and yanked it out. “Fuck!” She swore and collapsed on the ground, the bloody sword clattering to the floor next to her.

Hot tears ran down Anna’s cheeks and she went to her, “Why didn’t you defend yourself?”  
  
Demia tilted her large head up, “He looked like you… He’s your brother, isn’t he?” She said in a hushed voice, “He likes… apples.”  
  
Anna wiped her tears away and then she’s leaning down, heart throbbing painfully in her chest and hands outstretched. Their eyes meet as Anna reached for her, Demia struggled away for a moment but Anna spoke softly, “It’s alright,” she said gently, “I’m here.”  
  
She placed her hands on her chest where the wound was and pressed down. A sudden electricity surged through her touch and the temperature in the whole room plummeted. Later, Anna would swear she heard music, a tinkling ethereal sound that filled the space.

A blue light swelled before her and a cold rush of wind pushed her backward, she sees tufts of fur fall to the ground and then the bloody remains of a gown fall away. Anna’s eyes went large and she scurried backward away from the sudden bloom of color and sound.

A buzz surged through the air like static and Anna watched as Demia was consumed with light and then nothing.

She gasped softly when a young woman draped in furs stepped out of the blue swirl of light, her large blue eyes blinking slowly.

“Oh,” the woman said slowly and felt at her shoulder, “it’s healed too.”  
  
Anna’s mouth was still hanging open, her thoughts halting. A young woman with long shiny black hair and an oval face stood before her. She had a small slightly upturned nose, handsome arched eyebrows, cherry red lips and flushed narrow cheeks.

She was slightly shorter this time too, but her limbs though, the long rounded limbs were the same.

Anna rocked herself forward, “Demia?” She asked quietly.

The woman’s face split into a lovely smile, “There you are.” She put a hand out, “And in so many colors now too. Your eyes are green, I never noticed before.”

Anna threaded hand through her hair, “What, what happened?”  
  
Demia looked around and then to the boy on the floor, “Is your brother alright?” Her voice was musical now, soft and feminine, without any bite of growl undertone to it.

“Remfry… put him to sleep?” She looked over her shoulder and Remfry just nodded back.

Demia knelt down, “We should get him back down the mountain by sundown.”  
  
“Wait,” Anna stepped in front of her, she looked Demia up and down, “What happened?” She said again, “Why…” She gestured to Demia, “What’s going on?”  
  
Demia looked down at the floor, hair falling lankly into her face, “Don’t worry.” She muttered dolefully, “It isn’t permanent.”  
  
Anna put her hands on her hips, “Now what does that mean?” She stepped closer to put her face into Demia’s, “Explain yourself.”  
  
Demia gave a great sigh, the multiple furs slipping slightly from her soft shoulders, “You may want to sit down.” She said evenly, “it’s a bit of story.”  
  
Anna’s eyebrows raised, “I’ve been waiting for one of those.”  
  
Demia just turned toward the nearest window and stared out, “Those with pure of touch can turn the beast from teeth and fur to mortal girl once more.” Demia turned back to her, “it’s happened before.”

Anna blinked a couple times, “What has?”  
  
Demia put a hand through her straight black hair, “I’ve turned back before. That’s why I ask the villages to send young woman, they just kept doing it after a time, even when I asked them to stop.”  
  
Anna cocked her head to the side, “You asked them to stop?”  
  
She shrugged, “I only turn back for a few nights.” She looked down at her shoes, “And I can’t ask the girls to live in this place forever with me. Not if they don’t want to.”  
  
Anna pursed her lips together, “I’ve uh, touched you before.” She remembered back to her first night all those weeks ago.

Demia’s face split into stunning smile, “You’re heart wasn’t pure at the time.” She laughed, “You must have good intentions when you do it.”  
  
“Oh,” Anna flushed slightly, “Okay.” Anna glanced back at her sleeping brother, and then back to Demia, “Demia…” She said slowly, “You have to tell me. You have to tell my why this all happened.”  
  
Demia tucked her hair behind her ear, she seemed so much more nervous and fidgety without her wolf features, “You may want to leave once you hear it.” She said dejectedly, “It’s not a happy tale.”  
  
Anna sat down on the floor, “I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
Demia looked up and then back down, “This wasn’t always…” Her hands swept over her figure, “It wasn’t always my body.”  
  
Anna furrowed her brow, “Oh?”  
  
Demia nodded, “No one… saw me. Not really, not who I was. So one day, I snuck out of our house and went deep into the Everon Glade.”  
  
Anna shot up straight, “Everon?” It was known to be a place of magic and unearthly things.

Demia hummed, “I found a witch there and begged her to help me. Change me. She agreed, though never took payment.”  
  
“Was the magic tainted?” Anna whispered. “Did it turn on you?”

Demia huffed a sigh. “No,” she said softly, “I came back as Apodemia and my mother slowly adjusted like most everyone else. My father didn’t, he still called me ‘son.’” Demia hung her head, her blue eyes darted up, “But it was okay… for a time.”

Anna just reached out, she wanted to take her hand, “Go on.” She prompted instead.

“There was,” Demia sucked in a breath, “There was a group in my city that found out. They despise black magic you see and started to rally against what I had done. They called it corrupt and tampering with the natural order. They said I was letting dark magic into the minds of the youth.”

Anna gave a curious look, “That sounds rather… far-fetched.”  
  
Demia cracked a small smile, “It does, doesn’t it?” Her smile then faded again like a setting sunset, “But they had a plan too. They wanted to make an example of someone, to show what happens when you use ‘unnatural’ things.” Demia’s shoulders hunched over, “They got a lock my hair and performed a spell with it… with a wolfs.”

Anna gasped, “That’s awful,” Her expression hardened, “What mongrels!”

Demia laughed quietly, “Yes, I almost used my new teeth on them.” She took a deep breath, “But I was ran off into the woods before I could, not even even mother came after me.”  
  
Anna stepped closer, “And you found the castle?”  
  
Demia shook her head and looked over to Remfry, “A Nightingale saw my plight and told trees. The ancient oaks spread my story far and wide,” she gestured toward Remfry, “And only the Whispering Elves were listening.”

Anna looked to Remfry too, she mouthed ‘thank you.’

“They were the ones that found me,” Demia wiped her face, as if clearing something away. “They brought me food and water and led me up the mountain to somewhere I would be safe,” Demia looked back toward the window, “And then the storm started up the next day.”

“For… protection?” Anna asked carefully.

Demia shrugged, “I was never entirely sure.” She looked down at her feet, “That’s when the surrounding villages started to send tribute too, to appease me.” She shifted in place, “I didn’t… stop them.”  
  
Anna laughed and then climbed to her feet again, “Well, I’m glad they did.”  
  
“And then this whole Bride nonsense started to spiral from there,” she yanked her hair, “Though it is nice to be human again, briefly.”  
  
Anna snuck a little closer, “And what would happened,” she started slowly, tentatively, “If I sent my brother home?”  
  
“I hope you do,” Demia reached for her chest, “there’s only so many stabbings I can sustain in a year.”  
  
“And I… never went back with him?” Anna reached thoughtfully across the space, “What if I didn’t care about the wolf side? What would you say then?”  
  
Demia’s eyes went huge, her rosy cheeks blooming into a deep blush. “I would say that’s a fools move.” She whispered, “That it’s a lonely place up here. With just me.”  
  
Anna shrugged and put her arms on Demia’s shoulders, “I would tell her I don’t mind.” Anna started to lean forward, Demia trembled slightly under her touch. “In fact, I’m rather fond of her.”

“Anna,” she said slowly, her voice wobbling, “Anna…”  
  
“Tell me stop if you want,” Anna was slow, slow as flowers growing toward the sun and fresh fall leaves dropping gradually to the ground. Slow as light snowfall and burning new days.

“Don’t stop.” Demia whispered and Anna leaned in.

The kiss tasted like frost and burning light, it tingled down her spine and sent her stomach fluttering into a ballroom blitz of butterflies. The whole world slowed down into a single second, and in that second Anna closed her eyes and despaired.

Demia was warm and solid against her lips, but something else shifted around her, drawing her in and leading her somewhere else entirely. In her mind’s eye Anna saw a shining white light, everything else was dark except the single silver glow. It looked a suspended star, radiating a deep chill.

Anna raised her arms up and reached for it, words she couldn’t place echo through her head: _pull it close._ The star came floating toward her and she got on my tiptoes to wrap her fingers around it, a shock of cold ran against her skin.

Frigid water down her forearms as the thing came gently into her arms, a ball of ice with something pulsing and alive within it. Underneath the melting ice was a bright red light, it’s warmth increased with each beat from within.

The ice melted quickly until it was just one hunk of light, a red beating thing, she pulled it close to her and shut her eyes again. It all disappears.  
  
When she opened her eyes again she’s standing in the warm music room, papers strewn everywhere and her brother lying somewhere behind her. Anna looked up and saw Demia’s eyes shining with tears, streaming down her face, she gave a soft hiccup.

“Keep it safe,” she whispered hoarsely, all Anna could was nod back.

“Always,”She said, Demia wrapped her arms around Anna’s waist and pulled her into another kiss.

\-------------------------

The next morning, Anna delivered her brother outside, leading him toward the front of the castle as she explained the full story to him. He grumbled at several parts, but, in the end, accepted the bag of money from her.

He hugged her again for a very long moment, “Don’t be gone forever Anna.” He said into her ear.

She hugged him back tightly, “I won’t be.” She said softly, “Not this time.” Anna released him and stood there for a long moment, “Take care of Drake.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” They both smile.  
  
Callum turned to leave, “And hey!” He waved over his shoulder, “let me come to your wedding this time. It looks like I missed the first one!”

She laughed and waved at him as he left, walking into the morning sunshine.

Soon she turned back toward the castle grounds, they were slush at the moment with only pieces of bare green grass sticking their head up for the first time. She didn’t know how they managed to stay alive all this time, but Anna tried not to question magic too much.

She started to pick her way across the hilly terrain, the same hill she had almost died on months ago. Anna waved lazily over to a young woman relaxing on top of one of the green inclines, her skirts were wet from the damp earth but she didn’t seem to care.

She was cupping something gently in her hands and Anna slowed down to look at it.

“It’s funny,” Demia said without looking up, “They turned me into wolf,” she opened her fingers and a bright orange thing flew out, “Even though I named myself after a butterfly.”  
  
The lovely creature spreads it’s newborn wings and took flight into the clear golden air, Anna took a seat next to Demia.

“Well I prefer you stay human from now on, no butterfly-head needed.”  
  
She reached out and took Anna’s hand, weaving their fingers together, “I’ll be whatever you want,” she kissed her knuckles one by one, “As long as you stay.”

She put her head on Demia shoulder and they watch as the snow melted around them into spring. “Always.”


End file.
